


Under the Stars with You

by maplestreet83



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Summer Camp, Best Friends, F/M, Friends to Lovers, High School, I changed the title, Secret Relationship, age appropriate, and kissing, background mileven, but it's still the same fic, rated for language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 59,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24044452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplestreet83/pseuds/maplestreet83
Summary: Formerly named 'Now It's You'---A Lumax Summer Camp / Childhood Friends to Lovers AU---Max had planned to spend the summer before Senior year skating, playing video games and enjoying her last free summer before having to think about the future beyond high school. But when Dustin breaks his ankle just before the summer camp he and Lucas are counselors at, her plans are changed and she finds herself at Camp Lake Jordan, surrounded by pine trees and loud campers. Though there’s also the company of Lucas, her best friend of ten years, so it’s not that bad. But it seems like the abundance of fresh air is messing with her brain or something, because Max has started to get all these new confusing thoughts about him. Yes, she had a short crush on him back in Freshman year, but that had been a one-off thing, it wouldn’t happen again. Right?
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair
Comments: 46
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! Here we finally are with the first chapter of my second ever Lumax multichapter! I was so excited to write it and to write and play with different settings and dynamics. This time I wrote the whole fic before starting to post it, so hopefully I can keep the updates pretty consistent, and not make you wait months for new chapters again. So yeah, thank you again for reading my stories and I hope you like this one! And I'd love to hear your thoughts on it in the comments or on my tumblr, @lucascsinclairs!

Max Mayfield had never had a crush on Lucas Sinclair. Okay that was a lie, there had been that one time when she had spent the whole summer before Freshman year in California visiting family and when she’d gotten back Lucas had gotten a lot taller and that had really messed with her brain. But after like a week of being back she’d gotten over it once she realized that despite this new confusing development, he was still the same nerd that had been her best friend since she moved to town in first grade. Lucas had been there for her when she’d split her knee open after jumping off the swings when they were nine and he’d been there to help her egg Kyle Carman’s house when they were fifteen, after she’d found out he’d been cheating on her and kissing Beca Fry after band practice. 

Yes, all six of them were good friends, the four boys and Max and then El when she had moved to Hawkins at the start of high school. They were all close, but Max would still call Lucas her best friend. Yeah they bickered constantly, and sometimes she couldn't stand him and his dumb face, but they got each other's backs and were there for each other through everything. They had been friends for so long that it was all so natural, so easy, so uncomplicated. And it had always been that way, if you didn't count that short-lived crush when they were fourteen. 

Which was why Max was so confused and weirded out by whatever the hell was going on with her right now. It was the summer before Senior year, a summer Max had planned on spending skating, playing video games and drinking ungodly amounts of soda, enjoying the last summer before the responsibilities of having to figure out the future fully got to her. But as it turned out, her plan was not to be. Dustin and Lucas had been working as counselors at Camp Lake Jordan ever since they'd gotten old enough to graduate from campers to counselors, and so their plan was to spend three weeks at camp once again this summer. But two days before the camp was to begin, Dustin broke his ankle and had to cancel. Which, after a lot of negotiating and pleading had led to Max now sitting here, on the steps of the main house of the camp, ripping a band-aid open of its packaging and carefully placing it on the knee of one of the campers. 

"See? It’s all good now. Told you it was no big deal," she said, trying her best to cheer up the eight-year-old, a blonde girl from her cabin called Chelsea. She looked a little unconvinced, her nose scrunching up in disgust as she looked at the band-aids covering her knee. She had only fallen from the swings, but by her dramatic reaction to it, she might just as well have gotten a bullet to the knee. 

"You're sure it's fine? It looked bad," Chelsea asked, her brow furrowing. 

"I'm sure. I've been skating since I was your age, if anyone would know how to treat knee wounds, it would be me," Max assured her, as she picked up the little slips of paper left behind from getting out the band-aid, and stuffed them into the first aid bag along with the little bottle of disinfectant **.** It was the free time before dinner and Max had planned on spending it by catching up on a book instead of reassuring overdramatic eight-year-olds that they didn't actually need to have their leg amputated because of a little scratch. 

"Oh hi Chelsea! I was just coming to look for you, check this out!" 

Max turned to look back at the main house behind her, seeing Lucas walking out the double doors, a volleyball in his hands. 

"You fixed it!" Chelsea exclaimed, getting up from the stairs, turning to Lucas. 

"I sure did! Here, catch!" he replied, throwing the ball to her with his underhand. 

"Thanks," Chelsea said, catching the ball and then she bounded down the stairs and ran towards the grassy volleyball field, her wounded knee already forgotten. 

"Thanks for distracting her," Max said as Lucas got down the steps, sitting down next to her. 

"I was sure she was gonna demand a full body cast next," she added, going to zip up the first aid kit. 

"And I'm pretty sure we just gave out the last one of those we had," Lucas commented, settling to sit down on the steps. 

"Typical. I knew I should've packed an extra one with me," Max said with a faked sigh of exasperation, setting the first aid bag down. 

"You had to pack last minute though, so you might get a pass," Lucas pointed out, continuing to keep his face level. 

"Good to know I'm forgiven. It would've gnawed at me for the rest of camp otherwise," Max said dramatically, looking over at Lucas, letting the corner of her lips to lift up into a smile. Just a bit though. 

"You're welcome," he commented, his expression mirroring hers, before turning to look out at the grassy yard in front of the main house. Max turned to look ahead too, leaning back, her elbows on the stair behind her, stretching her legs out. It was another hot August day, the late afternoon sun beaming down on the steps and porch of the main house which was located on a small hill above the grassy clearing and the other smaller buildings and cabins scattered along the tree line. Camp Lake Jordan wasn't that big, with eight cabins of elementary school aged kids and a dozen teenage counselors plus the adult staff, working to keep everything together. Max had never planned to become a camp counselor, but she had to admit it wasn't the worst way to spend half her summer. Maddie, the counselor she was paired with to head cabin number four was a camp veteran and knew how to run things so she didn't have to stress too much, and she got along pretty well with the campers and the other counselors. Being a counselor would also be a good thing - and to be honest, the first thing - to add to her resume for college applications. As much as Max liked to ignore it, the end of high school was nearing awfully fast, and when Dustin had asked her to replace him at camp, she had realized this was a chance to at least do something about it. Another plus side to camp was that that food was pretty decent, and she got to hang out with Lucas for the whole time. Which she had looked forward to for a chance to have someone to bitch to if the camp had annoyed her, but now that there wasn’t much to complain about, it was just nice to hang out with him. 

But all the time she got to spend with him now had caused a weird side effect. She was starting to notice things. Things about him she hadn't paid any attention to before. Like how he tilted his head slightly to the left when he focused on listening to what she had to say, how a small dimple would appear at the corner of his mouth when he laughed at her dumb jokes, or how the summer sun would make gold flakes appear in his brown eyes. Yes, she'd technically seen all those things before, but now they were the only thing she could think about whenever they hung out, going through the daily tasks, preparing activities, cleaning up after dinner. And she had no idea why it was happening. She'd spent the first week of camp trying to come up with a reason why, trying to wrack her brain for it as she laid awake in her bunk at night. Maybe it was because Lucas was the only person she really knew at camp so she was focusing on him, maybe it was the abundance of fresh air and sunshine making her brain go into overdrive, or maybe she was just bored and looking for something to pass the time. She still hadn't come up with a good explanation but she knew there had to be one. Because she didn't like Lucas like that. She didn't have a crush on him, obviously she didn't. Their friendship was so solid, so comfortable, built over the last ten years. So there was no need for a sudden, unneeded crush to ruin it all. 

Max blinked her eyes against the bright sun, turning to glance at Lucas as he sat on the steps next to her, looking over the yard filled with campers enjoying their free time. He looked like he had needed this little break too after running the nature expedition earlier in the day, and he looked relaxed as he too leaned back, his palms pressed against the worn wooden steps, as he stretched his neck, his head turning slowly from side to side. He had the bright yellow Camp Lake Jordan Counselor t-shirt on just like she did and it once again made Max wonder why she'd never realized how good the color looked on him. Trying to think back, she was pretty sure she'd never seen him wearing yellow before this summer, and now that too was added to the list of new and different things she was noticing. Just like the way she was all of a sudden letting her gaze linger on Lucas when he wasn't looking, going over the lines of his face, the ridge of his nose, the details of his lips, counting the dark lashes circling his brown eyes. Under normal circumstances she would never let herself do that, but now? Everything felt different somehow, out there in the sunny pine tree scented air of the camp. The circumstances weren't normal, so she let herself stray from normal for now. 

"Hey, Earth to Mayfield!" Max jumped slightly, jolted awake from her thoughts as Lucas looked at her, confused, catching her staring at him. 

"Huh?" Max asked, sounding truly intelligent. 

"I was just asking if you were in the schedule for tonight's cabin checks?" 

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am. You too?" Max asked, trying to seem casual, and not like she’d just spent the last couple of minutes staring at him. 

"Yep. I need to go over tomorrow's kayaking lesson plans with Kevin after the campfire but I'll try to make it quick so I can join you for the cabin checkups," Lucas explained and Max nodded. 

"Okay. I’ll start from the first cabin, just catch up with me when you're done," she said, leaning forward, reaching down to pick one last piece of band-aid wrapper from the step by her feet, trying to avoid looking straight at Lucas. Had he noticed she'd been staring at him? Was he freaked out? Could she explain it by saying she'd just been zoning out? Before she came up with an excuse, one of the other counselors came out to the porch from the main house, calling for help setting up for dinner. So the two of them got up, going to round up the groups of campers in dinner duty today, going their separate ways with quick “see you later”s. And Max tried to convince herself that Lucas hadn't noticed her staring at him. Because the last thing she wanted was to make him uncomfortable. 

“You guys need my help to do what exactly?” Lucas asked, furrowing his brow in confusion, looking up from the clipboard he was holding. Him and Max had just finished the nightly cabin checkups, leaving cabin number ten now. 

“The VCR player isn’t working, we’re not sure what exactly is wrong with it, but I said you could figure it out. You know, with all your accolades and all, Mr. Vice President of the AV Club,” Max explained, bumping her elbow against Lucas's arm. 

“Ugh, fine, I'll check it out," he said with a huff, tucking the clipboard under his arm. 

"But is  _ Friday the 13th _ really the best movie to watch? Late at night? While at a summer camp in the middle of nowhere? Won't that hit way too close to home?" 

"Exactly! That's what's gonna make it so much fun! Meg's got the VHS, and we have a late morning on Saturday so tomorrow night we can all watch it in the rec room!" Max explained enthusiastically. 

"And be scared shitless for the rest of camp, sounds great!" Lucas said, mocking her tone but Max just rolled her eyes at him. 

"Come on, you'll love it," she said, bumping her shoulder with his as they made their way up the hill from the cabins to the big house. Or she would've bumped his shoulder if he wasn't a good five inches taller than her, so she only reached his arm. He didn't say anything and so they walked in silence for a bit, the sound of crickets echoing from the woods around them, moths buzzing around the lamp posts lighting the trail up the hill. The yellow of the lamps mixed in with the pale bluish light of the full moon, made the woods around them look not so dark as usual. And with a slight breeze coming in from the lake cooling the air after the hot day, the night was really nice as they walked through it in comfortable silence. 

"How do you think we'd do in a horror movie?" Max asked as she stepped up onto a log lining the trail. 

"Huh?" Lucas voiced, looking up from the clipboard he'd been adding final notes on. 

"Like in  _ Friday the 13th _ . If there was a masked killer at camp, how do you think we'd all do?" Max elaborated, bringing her arms out to her sides to balance her steps on the log. Lucas nodded in understanding, putting away the clipboard again as he thought about his answer. 

"Well I'll refuse to be the first to die, that's for sure," he started, looking over at her with a point of his finger. 

"Oh yeah, gotta put that tired cliché to rest," Max agreed. 

"You'd be the reasonable one, telling everyone to get the hell out of here. But we wouldn't listen," she elaborated and Lucas seemed to agree, nodding.

"It would be a slasher movie, so obviously not," he said.

“And you…” he added, pausing to think for a second. 

"You'd want to fight the killer, to face him head on. I could imagine you charging at him with an axe. Yelling at him to fuck off," he explained, a smile rising to his face.

"So you're saying I wouldn't be the Final Girl? Ouch, I'm hurt," Max exclaimed, bringing her hand to her chest in fake shock.

"Nah, you're too gutsy to be Final Girl. They're usually shy and reserved, you're not," Lucas explained.

"Not sure if I should take that as a compliment or not but alright," Max replied.

"But who do you think would be the Final Girl? Out of us all," she added after a while.

"Maddie, maybe? Or Jennifer?" Lucas suggested.

"Oh yeah," Max agreed, nodding.

"I could totally see Jennifer surviving. Bashing Jason's brains in in the end," she continued, mimicking slashing an imaginary weapon through the air.

"With that axe of yours. You could have a final heroic sacrifice and pass it on to her to kill Jason,” Lucas described, a grin spreading to his face, imagining the action.

“And he would be dead and beheaded, only to emerge from Lake Jordan a year later to terrorize a new group of campers,” Max narrated with dramatic flair, jumping down from the log to walk next to Lucas again. He grinned and Max looked up at him, the gold light of the lamp hitting his face. He looked really nice. She turned away quickly, blinking. She really shouldn’t be staring at him. Not when he could see it. So she looked down instead, at the dirt path under her feet, trying to focus on the pinecones and twigs and stones instead of how badly she suddenly wanted to reach out and touch the gold on his cheek. 

“Oh you gotta be kidding me,” Lucas said, sounding frustrated and Max snapped her face back up, nerves twisting in her stomach for a split second before she noticed he was looking out at the lake and not at her.

“What? Is Jason rising from the lake to merk us all?” she asked, trying to mask her nerves with a joke as she too turned to look over at the lake, rising to her toes to see better.

“No, look,” Lucas said, pointing at something out on the lake, a fifty or so feet from the shore.

“You gotta be shitting me! Again?” Max yelled out once she spotted what Lucas was looking at. A stray canoe drifting on the water, slowly getting pulled further and further to the lake by the wind. 

“Whose job was it to clean up after kayaking today?” she asked as they started to jog down the hill towards the lake, trying their best to not trip over roots and rocks on the dark path. 

“I don’t know. But whoever it was, looks like they half-assed it,” Lucas huffed, stepping over a final tree-stump before they got to shore.

“That much is clear,” Max huffed out in annoyance as they passed the showers and the lake shed, walking onto the dock. Lucas didn’t say anything, looking out at the canoe, still a good forty feet away. 

“So? What’s the plan?” Max asked, putting her hands on her hips, looking over at Lucas. He was looking around, his brain clearly at work trying to figure out what to do.

“Well, um… Maybe we could…” he mumbled, going to grab a coil of rope from the pier.

“Lasso it?” Max asked, her brow knitting in confusion.

“Didn’t know you were a cowboy.”

“Ha ha, funny,” Lucas said dryly, turning the rope in his hands.

“But you’ve got a point. It probably won’t work.”

“So I guess I’ll just…” he sighed, setting the rope back down, kicking off his shoes.

“Go and pull it to shore."

"Are you crazy?" Max exclaimed, her eyes wide as she looked at Lucas who took off his watch, handing it over to her. 

"Well we gotta get the canoe before it drifts all the way across the lake," Lucas explained, stepping up to the edge of the dock, looking down at the dark water.

"But you don't need to jump to the lake all by yourself, I can help out too," Max pointed out.

"You can help me pull it on land," Lucas said, backing up and then he took a few running steps and jumped into the lake without second thought. 

"Since when did you become reckless?" Max yelled out to him as he resurfaced, his head and shoulders coming above water. 

"Since I'll be running the kayaking trip tomorrow and I know we'll be needing all of them," he yelled back, starting to make swim strokes to get to the canoe. 

"And not at all because you’ll be blamed for the canoe going missing and you don’t want it on your record?” Max added, yelling out to him as he got further away.

“That too!” he yelled back, getting to the canoe. Max peered out at him through the dark, watching as he grabbed onto the side of the canoe, wiping water from his eyes and turning to look back at the shore. 

“Can you help me get this onto the beach?” he asked and Max gave him a thumbs up, running back along the wooden dock, heading for the shore. She kicked off her flip flops as she reached the sand, looking out at the lake to see Lucas making headway with the canoe, slowly but surely nearing the shore. 

“You good over there?” Max yelled out to him, walking right up to the edge of the water.

“Yeah, I’m fine!” Lucas answered, his voice a little strained by his efforts.

“Hey look at it this way, you get to go on a full moon swim!” Max yelled out to him, trying to cheer him up.

“How romantic!” he commented with a huff, continuing to guide the canoe towards the shore. Max tried to ignore the weird tug at her heart. What the hell was that all about?

Lucas was getting close to the shore so Max walked into the lake, the cool water lapping around her ankles. She had gotten knees deep into the water when Lucas reached her with the canoe.

“Here, let me help you out,” she said, grabbing hold of the front of the canoe, starting to pull it forward.

“Thanks,” Lucas said, relieved he didn’t have to haul the weight on his own. Max readjusted her grip on the canoe, turning towards the beach to pull it forward, hearing Lucas scrambling up from the water behind her. They didn’t say anything as they pulled the canoe ashore, dragging it along the wet sand. 

“There,” Lucas said with a groan as they finally got the canoe on dry land, letting go of it. Max let go as well, wiping her wet hands onto her still dry shirt. Lucas wasn’t as lucky, he’d kept his counselor shirt on when he’d jumped into the lake and it was soaking wet. Max looked over at him, and at the water dripping from his clothes, and he noticed, looking down at himself too, picking at the fabric of his shirt, wet and stuck to his skin. Max gulped.

“There should be some towels in the shed, I’ll put the canoe with the others, go dry yourself off,” Max said, turning to look away, hoping he didn't notice how her voice had risen in pitch. She was mentally hitting herself for acting like this. She really had to get herself together. 

“You sure you don’t need help with that?” Lucas asked. 

“I’ll handle it. Don’t need you catching a cold,” Max assured him, shooing him away. He left, starting to head for the shed by the dock, and Max grabbed ahold of the canoe again, starting to pull it towards were the other ones were, stored securely on a stand and under a tarp. 

She worked to secure the canoe in place, trying her best to do it like Maddie had taught her at the start of camp. She tied a rope around the canoe, trying to make a secure knot, but she couldn’t help but feel distracted. Distracted by how weird she was feeling for no good reason. Her hands were a little shaky, her throat dry. She really was trying to focus on getting the job done, but her mind just kept on going back to how Lucas had looked just now, how the moonlight had caught the water clinging to his skin and wet clothes. If earlier she’d noticed how the sunshine made him appear golden, now he’d looked like he was glowing silver and deep blue, like he was a neon-lit character from Blade Runner or a mysterious love interest from a music video on MTV. And she shouldn’t be noticing any of it, she knew she shouldn’t. But she couldn’t help herself. 

“Shit,” Max muttered, having somehow managed to tie her finger into the knot. She undid it, trying again, just wanting to get this done. It was late, she needed to go to bed and shut off her brain for a while. Finishing tying the knot, she pulled the tarp over the canoes, taking a step back. She stood in the middle of the beach, looking over the calm lake, the moonlight reflecting on the soft waves. Max took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. There were two more weeks of camp left, she just had to power through it, to ignore these weird sudden feelings. 

She turned away from the lake, placing her hands on her hips as she tried to decide what she should do, looking at the trail leading up the hill, and then at the lake shed Lucas was in. He’d left the door partly open; she could just let him be, yell out that she was heading to bed and leave. But… She took out his watch she’d stuffed into her shorts pocket when he’d given it to her. She brushed her thumb over the digital watch face, weighing it in her hand. He’d had that watch since they were in middle school, he would definitely notice if she didn’t give it back right away.

Her steps light on the sand, Max made her way towards the shed. She bit her lip, turning the watch in her hands nervously as she neared the open door. She wasn't sure what exactly she was on her way to do, her feet and beating heart were leading her forward, her brain few paces behind. She stepped into the shed, rapping her knuckles against the door frame to let Lucas know she was there. He was standing on the other side of the small shed, in the corner by the supply shelf, twisting his t-shirt in his hands, trying to get the water out. Hearing her walking in, he turned to look at her, his face catching the faint moonlight coming in from the small window.

"You got it?" he asked, wiping his face with a towel he had hanging around his neck. 

"Y-yeah, I did," Max answered, a beat too late, as despite her efforts, her focus kept drifting down to his bare arms and torso. Why couldn’t she just keep it together for five more minutes?

"You good?" Lucas asked, his brow furrowed in confusion as he started to walk towards her. Looked like he'd finally caught onto the weird way she was acting. 

"I, umm," Max started, her words failing her as she averted her eyes, trying to look anywhere but at Lucas, hoping it would snap her out of this weird state, shake some sense back into her, remind her that this was her best friend, not some nameless magazine model for her to ogle. 

“Here,” she got out, handing out the watch to him.

“Oh right, thanks,” he said, taking the watch and securing it on his wrist with practiced ease. A beat of silence passed between them and Max finally looked back at Lucas to see his expression was becoming concerned, his focus on her face, studying her, trying to figure out what was going on. She knew he didn't mean to do it, but she felt the weight of his gaze heavy on her, making all the air escape from her lungs. It felt horrible, suffocating, but oh so great too, making her head feel light and airy. 

"Is there something wrong?" Lucas asked as he stopped right in front of her, leaning his head down just a bit, genuine confusion and concern on his face. When Max still didn't say anything, just opened and closed her mouth, he added:

"Okay you're starting to freak me out. Is there an actual ax murderer outside?" 

"No," Max finally got out, screwing her eyes shut, frustrated. She wasn't sure what was going on with her, but what she did know was that she needed to put an end to it. And she suddenly understood what she needed to do to make that happen. 

"Okay, but what is it then?" Lucas asked and Max sighed, not believing it had actually come to this. Then she opened her eyes, seeing Lucas's face just inches from hers, his expression truly perplexed. And she knew it was about to get even more so. 

"Screw it," she muttered under her breath, and Lucas leaned closer, trying to catch what she was saying. But as he did, she met him halfway, her lips finding his in a kiss she so desperately wanted to end the weirdness within her. It was quick, just a hasty press of lips against lips, and then before he could react, before he could say anything, Max leaned away, turning around and running away. It had to be done, but she still wasn't proud of it. And it felt like even bigger of a mistake with every hurried step she took on the dirt path up the hill. She'd just kissed her best friend. 

“Max, you coming?” Maddie yelled out from the doorway, looking at her watch impatiently.

“I’m almost ready, you go and get everyone up for breakfast, I’ll be right there,” Max said, standing in front of the mirror, her hands stretched up above her head, frenchbraiding her hair. 

“Just meet us in the dining hall,” Maddie said with a huff and then she hurried off. 

“I will,” Max assured her, yelling after her, turning back to look at herself in the mirror. Usually she would’ve felt bad about being late and making Maddie do all the work with the morning routine. But this morning, she wanted to do everything as slowly as possible, delaying the moment she would have to leave the cabin and face the other campers and counselors. The moment she would need to face Lucas for the first time since she’d gone and kissed him out of the blue. Gone and ruined ten years of friendship in one moment of confused and reckless action. Well, to be fair, she had kissed him once before. But that had been during a game of spin the bottle ages ago so it didn’t count, it wasn’t a real kiss. She doubted he even remembered it. But this situation was different. There was no game she could hide behind this time. This time she didn’t know how she could ever face Lucas again. Honestly, if Jason Vorhees were to climb through the cabin window and kill her right then and there, she’d thank him. Because then she wouldn’t have to own up to her mistake and explain to Lucas why she’d gone and kissed him like that. She wasn’t really sure if she even had an explanation to give him. It had been many small things; the moonlight, the late night, the confusion and uneasiness that had been building up within her for the past week. Probably it wasn’t even him, maybe she was just bored and antsy and needed to take it out on someone. Maybe he’d just happened to be there, caught in the crossfire of her sudden burst of teenage recklessness. 

Max finished her second braid, tying it with a green hair tie. She huffed, messing with the braids, smoothing hairs on top her head, pulling strands away from the braids to frame her face. She was stalling, and she knew it. It was nearing eight o’clock, and she should’ve been at the dining hall already, or at least on her way there. If she didn’t get going soon, she’d have to face Maddie’s wrath. So with one last nervous tuck at her braids, she turned and headed out the room, walking down the cabin steps into the bright and sunny morning air. 

She reached the main house just in time to meet Maddie and the cabin four campers by the doorway, joining them as they lined up to get breakfast. Maddie gave her an annoyed look as she joined them, and Max mouthed “sorry!” to her before focusing on herding the kids inside, telling Katie to wait for her turn and not push the others in line. Their cabin was one of the last ones to arrive for breakfast, the large and airy dining hall filled with the sounds of kids chatting and eating, the smell of warm toast, orange juice and breakfast sausages floating in the air. Max grabbed some breakfast and then joined the campers at their table, and the whole time she ate, she felt like she was being watched, constantly looking around to see if Lucas was there, in the line for breakfast, or at the table with his campers. But she didn’t see him anywhere. She should’ve been relieved, happy that she could delay the moment she had to speak to him, but instead she felt anxious and paranoid, glancing around as she ate her toast and eggs, waiting for Lucas to jump out at her any minute.

“Hey, Max?” Max jumped, feeling someone poking at her arm. She quickly turned her head to see it was Emma, the camper sitting next to her.

“What is it?” Max asked, trying to seem calm and not like she’d just gotten majorly freaked out.

“Are we making new bracelets today? Cause mine broke and I wanna make a new one,” Emma said, picking up a broken bracelet from her shorts pocket, multicolored plastic beads rolling all over the table.

“Umm, well we’re doing crafts after lunch, so if you finish your project then yeah, you can make a new bracelet,” Max answered, trying to pay attention to the conversation but her focus was seriously straying away once she noticed Lucas entering the dining hall from across the room. He was talking with one of the senior counselors, probably about the canoeing lesson after breakfast. Max ducked her head, looking at him from the corner of her eye as he walked across the room. It didn’t seem like there was anything off about him, his movements were relaxed as he walked, happily greeting his table of campers. Emma kept on speaking, explaining what kind of bracelet she wanted to make later, and Max nodded along, trying to seem like she was listening, while looking over at Lucas as he went over to where his cabin was sitting, leaning his hands on the table, listening to the campers excitedly talked to him about something. He smiled, shaking his head, trying to calm them all down and Max couldn’t help but keep her gaze on him. He was so comfortable in the counselor role after all the summers he’d spent at camp, and all his campers loved him, thinking he was the coolest person ever. Which wasn’t far from the truth. 

Maybe it was a coincidence or maybe he’d sensed her staring at him, but suddenly Lucas’s eyes were on her, catching her gaze from across the room and over the tables of campers. 

“Shit,” Max hissed, turning away quickly.

“You swore!” Emma gasped, pointing her finger at Max, her jaw dropped and her eyes wide.

“I did, I’m sorry. Don’t repeat it, okay?” Max hurried to tell her, focusing back on her plate of food. But as much as she tried to ignore it, she still saw from the corner of her eye that Lucas had left the table and started to make his way towards her. But it didn’t necessarily mean he was coming to talk to her, maybe he was going to another table, maybe he’d seen someone else and was going to talk to them.

“Hey.” 

Well crap.

“Morning,” Max answered to Lucas, trying to sound cool and collected, picking up her piece of toast. 

“All ready to go kayaking?” she asked, her tone conversational as she looked at him, hoping that pretending that nothing was going on would make him forget it all.

“Oh, yeah, I am,” he answered, seeming caught off guard by her casual tone. 

“Are we going kayaking too?” Emma asked, excited as she looked from Lucas to Maddie at the other end of the table. 

“Yes, right after breakfast. So eat up!” Maddie said, gesturing at the still mostly full bowl of cereal on the table in front of the girl. The campers all dug into their food, chattering excitedly about the kayaking lesson. With the loud clamor Max could almost pretend that Lucas wasn’t still standing there next to her. Taking a bite of her toast she glanced up at him, looking at him with a question on her face. Trying to seem like she had no idea what he wanted to talk to her about.

“Can we talk?” he asked, lowering his voice to further hide it under the noise. 

“Sure. What’s up?” Max asked, continuing eating, picking up her glass of orange juice.

“No, I meant…” Lucas said, glancing around, shifting nervously in place.

“Somewhere else,” he added, his voice dropping even more, looking beyond uncomfortable, shoving his hands into his short’s pockets.

“Oh,” Max said, gripping tight onto the glass in her hand. Shit shit shit shit.

“Okay then. I’ll finish this and I’ll see you outside,” she said, hoping to sound casual as she looked up at Lucas again.

“Okay,” he said, and for a second he looked like he was about to say something more, pressing his lips together, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. But then he seemed to decide against it and walked away without another word. Max picked up her glass again, turning it in her hands as she looked out across the table, her brain busy trying to come up with an escape plan. She could just get on one of the canoes and paddle away, never to return. She sighed, focusing back into the reality, seeing Maddie eyeing her from across the table, her expression a mix of annoyed and curious. Not wanting to say anything in front of the kids because she knew she would never hear the end of it, Max just shrugged, doing her best to seem like it was no big deal. 

Having dropped off her empty plate and glass, Max made her way out of the hall, trying her best to blend in with the campers who'd already finished their breakfast and were hurrying to get outside. She still felt like everyone was staring at her, watching her every move and wondering where she was going. She almost wanted to turn to face the room and yell at everyone that there was nothing going on, that everything was cool! That it was perfectly normal for her to go and kiss her best friend of ten years without any warning and ruin their friendship in one fell swoop. That it was all cool that she was about to be yelled at by him, and for good reason too, that it was perfectly normal that he would probably never want to speak to her ever again. Everything was just great! 

She pushed open the door to the front hall of the house, having to get out the way as a group of boys ran outside, nearly knocking her over. 

"Hey, watch out you guys!" she yelled out at them, getting yelled out “sorry”s from the kids as they ran outside. Huffing, crossing her arms over her chest, Max looked away from the open double doors leading outside and jumped when she saw Lucas at the other end of the room, standing around looking awkward. 

"Shit you scared me!" Max exclaimed, looking around to check if anyone was nearby. 

"Sorry, I thought you told me to wait here," he pointed out, his brow furrowing in confusion. 

"Yeah, I know, sorry," Max said, unfolding her arms, pressing her palms together instead. There was a moment of awkward silence as they both looked around in the empty room. 

"Um, so I was thinking we could…" Lucas started after a moment, pointing at the door to the rec room. 

"Yeah, sure, okay," Max mumbled, following him as he rushed in, making sure the room was empty, the awkwardness between them reaching a new high. She kept her gaze down as she entered the room a couple steps behind him, turning to close the door. She wasn't sure what exactly she needed to say to him, but she needed to say something to fix this, to explain what she'd done, even if she still couldn't really explain it to herself. Squeezing the door handle, Max closed her eyes, steeling herself before turning to face him. 

"Lucas, I'm so sorry. I don't know what I was thinking and…"

But that was all she got out because Lucas was suddenly standing right in front of her. And then his hands were on her cheeks. And then he was kissing her. 

Max didn't even have time to close her wide blown eyes before he stepped away, dropping his hands from her face. Max took a step back too, blinking her eyes, opening and closing her mouth as she tried to understand what the hell just happened. 

"Wait, what did… what are… why…" she mumbled, bringing her hands up to the sides of her head, feeling like her brain was boiling over, trying to understand what was happening. 

"You're not… You're not mad?" she finally got out, looking at Lucas who was standing frozen in place. 

"No," he simply said, looking over at her. 

"Oh," she breathed out, blinking as she looked up at him. And then she wasn't sure which one of them moved first but then they were kissing again. 


	2. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a moment of confusion Max had gone and kissed Lucas out of the blue, and she's been sure he would be grossed out and angry with her for ruining ten years of friendship between them. But then he'd kissed her back. What were they supposed to do now? Be mature and vulnerable and properly talk things through? Over Max's dead body.

Max Mayfield and Lucas Sinclair were best friends. They had been since that cold winter day in first grade when Max first stood in front of Mrs. Keller’s classroom, holding her new bright green lunch box, her hair in two tight pigtails her mom insisted on putting her hair into even though she hated it. She’d been assigned a seat next to Mike C, but then he’d pulled at her pigtails at recess and she’d punched him with all the might of a seven-year-old, so she’d been transferred to sit in the front of the classroom. Where Lucas happened to be sitting too. They’d later wonder what would’ve happened if Mike C hadn’t been such a little shit and she’d stayed in her old seat. Maybe then they’d never gotten to know each other. But whether it was all a coincidence, or if their friendship was always to be, the fact remained that they had been best friends since. 

And now at seventeen, they remained best friends. At camp they'd go through their counselor duties, setting up and supervising activities, looking out that none of the campers got injured or wandered off into the woods, made sure there were enough smores and juice boxes for everyone. And when they saw each other in the middle of it all, they’d talk, joke around, pull faces at each other in passing. They went on as if nothing had changed, like everything was like it had always been between them. But there was that one thing that had changed. The thing they didn’t talk about, didn’t say a word about, ever. The fact that every day for a week now when there wasn’t any cleaning up to do, or activities to run, they’d without a word somehow find their way into a storage closet, or a pantry, or an outdoor shed somewhere and spend a good ten minutes making out. And then still without saying anything they’d part ways again, pretending like there wasn’t anything going on. Only to go through the same song and dance again the next day. 

It had been going on for a week now, and Max still didn’t know what to think about it. She had been curious about what it would be like to kiss Lucas for real, and now that they’d kissed, that should’ve been enough. She knew now, so she should’ve been moving on from it. But he had surprised her and kissed her back, so then she’d kissed him back and it had kind of spiraled from there. 

Max knew she should’ve felt weirded out by it, or embarrassed, but she didn’t. It all just felt so surreal, the unusual surroundings of the camp helping along with convincing herself that this was all an anomaly to how things normally were between them. It was all just a temporary thing, a weird blip in the timeline of their friendship, one they’d laugh about in ten years. It had to be. Because if it wasn’t, then Max would have to think about this, to actually acknowledge how she felt when she was around Lucas, realize how what she’d started was surely going to end in disaster and ruin their friendship. So she refused to think that far, just sticking to kissing Lucas instead, as she had quickly learned it worked well to shut off her brain.

Besides, it seemed like Lucas wanted this to be a temporary thing too, judging by how he hadn’t brought it up either, how even when they’d talk alone when working in clean up or cabin checks he still didn’t talk about it with her. It was like a silent agreement between them to keep whatever happened in those daily ten minutes behind the closed doors of those storage rooms and sheds. And Max was happy to keep it that way, to save her from the trickiness of trying to make sense of her feelings, make sense of whatever this was between them. 

But she should’ve known it was all going too well to go on forever. It was a Saturday night and the campers were all in bed already, so the counselors were gathering around the dying campfire, gorging on smores and singing along to Kevin’s Summer Jams Mixtape playing in the boombox. Max had gone inside to get her sweatshirt and Lucas… well she wasn’t sure what exactly his excuse had been, but either way now they were there in the sports supply closet, Max sitting up on the edge of the ping pong table, Lucas standing in front of her, his hand gingerly resting on her knee as their lips met over and over in kisses that were slowly but surely becoming routine. Just a week ago the idea would’ve been insane to Max, not only knowing what it felt like to kiss Lucas, but to know it well enough to be able to tell if something was bugging him. Like right now. 

“Wait, sorry,” Lucas mumbled, breaking the kiss, ducking his head back.

“Got a hair in my mouth,” he added, looking away, avoiding her gaze as he brought his hand up to pick at an invisible hair at the side of his mouth.

“Oh,” Max said, leaning back and looking away too.

“Well should I tie my hair up or something?” she asked, trying her best to sound helpful and casual, going to grab a scrunchie she had around her wrist.

“No, no, it’s good, I got it,” Lucas assured her, flicking away the hair somewhere on the floor.

“You sure?” Max asked and he nodded, taking a step back towards her.

“Yeah, it’s all good,” Lucas repeated and Max shrugged in an “okay”, before setting her hands back on his shoulders, quickly leaning in to resume the kiss. This was the most they’d ever talked during these moments of theirs, and it was enough for her. Lucas did kiss her back, but even so, she could again tell there was something off about it, he was feeling tenser than usual.

“Okay, what’s going on?” Max asked, frustrated, pulling away from the kiss, letting go of his shoulders.

“Huh?” Lucas voiced, blinking his eyes open.

“There’s clearly something up with you, what is it?” Max pressed on, crossing her arms over her chest. As much as she wanted to avoid talking to him right now, he was still her best friend and she couldn’t help but ask him. What if it was about something serious? Lucas shifted in place, looking away for a second before he turned back to her.

“What is _this_?” he asked, his voice strained, and his expression slightly pained, like he knew it would be better to avoid this but he couldn’t hold the question in anymore. Hearing the question she’d been dreading, Max turned her gaze down, feeling like she was folding in on herself, her hands gripping tight on her arms. 

“We don’t talk about it, I know. But I’m just so confused,” Lucas added, looking frustrated and awkward, bringing his hand up to scratch the back of his head.

“Like, does this mean that we’re…”

“No, no!” Max cut him off loudly before he could finish what he was about to say. Because whatever it was, the answer would still be the same one.

“This is nothing. This is just… just temporary, just a summer thing,” she hurried to explain, gesturing wildly at the space between them. Because that’s what this was. What this had to be, right? It was the only way Max could make this thing make sense.

“Oh, okay,” Lucas voiced.

“But if that’s not cool with you we can always stop…” Max suggested, her brows rising. A part of her wished he would call it off now, to say that he didn’t want to do this anymore. It would save her the trouble of having to end this herself. But another part of her really didn’t want that.

“No, no!” Lucas hurried to say, waving his hands as he turned to look at her again.

“It’s cool, that’s what I want too, you know, that’s fine. Just umm, wanted to clear it up, so we’re both on the same page here,” Lucas explained, rambling and Max nodded along, probably looking a bit manic as she quickly nodded her head, her eyes wide to signal that she was paying attention. She wasn’t sure how she was feeling hearing him say that. Was she happy, relieved, disappointed?

“Exactly, and like, now we have, so it’s all cool,” she said, her voice a little more tense and high-pitched than she’d intended.

“Okay one more thing though,” Lucas added, bringing up his index finger. 

“So this is just for camp? When we go back home we won’t talk to anyone about this, right?” he asked and his words made Max pause. To be honest, she hadn’t thought that much ahead, but now that he’d mentioned it, her stomach was already twisting in knots thinking about El and the guys finding out. How was she going to explain this to them if she couldn’t even figure it out for herself? Of course they couldn’t tell their friends, they’d blow it all out of proportion.

“Of course not. This stays here. We don’t need to tell everyone, it would just become this huge thing,” Max explained. 

“And this is not a thing, got it,” Lucas said, nodding, putting his hands into his pockets.

“And the same thing with everyone here too,” Max quickly added. Maybe it was a given, with how they’d already been sneaking around this past week but no one at camp could find out about this or the word would surely travel to their friends once school started.

“Let’s just keep doing what we’ve been doing the past week, no one needs to know about this,” she added.

“And we won’t talk about this outside? Or once we go back to school?” Lucas made sure. 

“No, I think it’s best if we don’t. Just to be safe. It’s like… the separation of church and state, you know. Better keep this separate to not mess up the balance,” Max explained, trying to look casual, leaning back with her palms on the table.

“I’m not sure how well that analogy fits this situation, but okay. I get what you mean,” Lucas said, his expression a little confused despite what he was saying.

“Okay cool,” Max said, giving him as genuine a smile as she could muster, given how totally awkward this conversation had been. This was why they hadn’t talked about this. 

“Cool,” Lucas repeated, swinging his arms awkwardly, not sure what to do with them.

“So, umm, do you want to…” he started after a moment, looking at her, gesturing his hands between them. 

“Nah, I’m not feeling it anymore. Plus it’s getting late, they’re gonna get suspicious soon,” Max said, reaching for the sweatshirt she had already grabbed from her room and had set on the table next to her.

“Yeah, you’re right, we should head back,” Lucas agreed, stepping away, giving her space as she pulled the sweatshirt on. And that was it for their talk and soon Lucas headed out the door and Max stayed in the room, waiting a couple minutes to give him a head start so they wouldn’t look suspicious returning to the campfire together. As she stood in the dark room, leading her shoulder against the door, turning the yarn bracelet she’d made in arts and crafts yesterday on her wrist, she tried not to think about how she could've sworn there was a flicker of hurt in Lucas’s eyes when she’d told him this was nothing between them. She was sure she’d imagined it because it wouldn’t make any sense. He must’ve understood just as well as she did that this thing of theirs wasn’t going anywhere. It couldn’t for the sake of her own sanity. And he’d been adamant on making sure that they would keep this a secret, so surely he wanted it that way too. So there was no reason for her to feel guilty about being blunt with him. She needed to make it clear to him that this was a summer thing, nothing more. He needed to understand it to make this much more simple. They didn’t need this becoming even more of a mess.

Their talk in the sports supply room didn't change anything, but at the same time it changed everything. Their kisses the next day felt awkward and obligatory, Lucas calling it off after just a couple of minutes and telling Max he needed to go help out with something. Max let him leave, relieved to end the awkwardness that was suddenly hanging between them. Maybe this thing of theirs had run its course. It had been fun for a week but now that they had talked about it, actually acknowledged it out loud, it had changed everything. It had made this from an accident to something they were both consciously taking part in and continuing even though they knew it wasn't exactly smart. And Lucas was smart, like crazy smart. It was about time he realized this was wrong and wanted to call it off.

Max sighed as she started to walk the trail towards the cabins after giving Lucas a head start once again. She really didn't want to talk to Lucas about this again, it would be just too embarrassing, admitting she’d only started this out of boredom and stupid teenage hormones, and he’d just been conveniently there. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way. Maybe she could just stop talking to him, stop finding a way to get them alone to kiss him. They'd started this suddenly, she could end it just as quickly. She could quit kissing him cold turkey, no problem. Though in the back of her mind Max knew that she really didn't want to. Now that she knew what it was like kissing Lucas, she was finding it hard to imagine stopping it. 

That night Max and Maddie got their campers to settle down and go to bed quickly as they were all exhausted after a hike and so Max had some extra free time before going to bed herself. So she picked up her book, the latest Stephen King, and walked out to the porch in front of the counselors’ cabin, sitting down on a bench and propping her feet up onto the railing lining the porch. The woods were quiet around her and the yellow porch light hanging above her cast a warm light onto the pages of the book as she read, the stress of the day fading away. 

"So what is it this time? Killer clowns or zombie cats?"

Max looked up from the book to see Lucas walking up the trail towards the cabin, slowly coming into the light. 

"Neither this time," Max said, shrugging. 

"Just a writer being held hostage by a psychotic fan."

"So fun and breezy then, got it," Lucas answered, nodding, walking up the stairs and sitting down on the bench next to her. Seeing Max looking over at him, her brows raised in confused amusement, he continued:

"What?" 

"What is that?" Max asked, pointing at the family size box of cereal he was holding. 

"Oh this? Cocoa Puffs," he answered casually, reaching his hand inside the box and procuring a handful of chocolate cereal. 

"And why exactly do you have a huge box of Cocoa Puffs on you?" 

"Cause I was hungry. You want some?" he asked, holding out his hand to her. With one more suspicious squint his way, Max set down her book and picked up couple of pieces of cereal from him. 

"You were hungry so you stole from the kitchen. Didn't think you were such a criminal, Sinclair, I'm oddly impressed."

"Oh there's only a couple handfuls of these left, they'd already started on a new box. So there was no stealing," Lucas explained, his mouth full of cereal. 

"You tell yourself that if it helps you sleep at night," Max said, popping a piece of cereal into her mouth. 

"Also," she added, picking up her book again. 

"You missed a perfect chance to ask if the book had cereal-killers in it."

"Oh my god, you're right, I did," Lucas exclaimed, throwing his head back dramatically.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," he added with a determined point of his finger. 

"Better write it down," Max suggested, opening up the book and continuing reading from where she had left off. They sat in silence for a while, her reading and Lucas sitting next to her, eating his cereal. It should've been awkward between them, considering everything that was going on. But for some odd reason it wasn't, the cooling night air calm and relaxing around them, the complicatedness of the situation between them nowhere to be found for just a brief moment. They had talked about the thing going on between them, yes, but that had still happened behind the closed door of the sports supply closet, it still hadn’t managed to ruin the rest of the times they hung out together. The time when they could just be, exist together in the natural silence and comfort they had formed over ten years of friendship. But by the way things were going, it was only a matter of time before these calm comfortable moments would be ruined too. And Max really didn’t want that. She turned the page of the book, gripping into it with a little more force now. She needed to tell Lucas they should end it. They should stop… whatever it was that was going on between them. She'd be quick and casual about it and then they could go back to being friends again, save whatever was left of it and move on. 

"Hey, umm," Lucas spoke, breaking the silence. Max looked over at him, seeing his gaze was cast forward as he looked like he was trying to form his words. 

"Sorry I brought it all up yesterday. I can see you didn't want to talk about it, and I shouldn't have made you uncomfortable. I just…" he spoke, his voice slightly hushed as he turned to look at her. Max averted his gaze, biting the inside of her cheek. He was bringing it up out in the open like this, he was crossing the line. And she was panicking. 

"I just wanted to know what was going on. But if you don't want to, we don't have to talk about it anymore. I won't ask any more questions if you don't want me to," he continued, glancing at her, his gaze earnest and almost shy. Max looked away properly, looking out at the dark woods. Did he mean..?

"But you think… You want us to keep…" Max asked, her voice low, she didn’t want anyone inside the cabin to hear. 

"Yeah, of course!" Lucas assured her with a nod, but then quickly added:

"I mean, just for the rest of camp, like you said."

Max didn’t say anything right away, too busy with trying to make sense of all the conflicting emotions swirling around in her brain right now. She was relieved, figuring she didn’t need to come clean to him and call things off after all. She was also relieved because he’d said they didn’t need to talk about this anymore, letting her put off having to untangle the mess that was her feelings for him. And yeah, she was selfishly happy because this meant that she could keep on kissing him for a while longer. But she was also worried about how things would end up, and antsy and excited, not knowing what exactly this meant for the last week of camp. 

“Okay, that’s cool with me,” Max finally said, shrugging, hoping to seem nonchalant about this. 

“Okay,” Lucas replied, looking away from her again with a small smile. Max looked back down at her book. She tried to focus back on its pages, to relax, but Lucas’s words had caused a weird, achy feeling to appear in her stomach, making her feel restless as she sat beside him on the porch. It was like she was sitting on pins and needles, like she was waiting for something to happen, but wasn’t sure what exactly it was. It was part dread, part worry and fear, but it was also part breathless excitement, making her heart race and her focus fray. She wasn’t sure if she was ready to figure out which one of those feelings was the strongest.

"But umm, I'll stop bugging you while you're trying to read," Lucas said after a while, breaking her from her thoughts as he stood up. 

"Oh good. This whole time I've just been trying to come up with a polite way to tell you to get out of my face already. Good thing you realized it yourself, saved me the trouble," Max said, trying her very best to seem cool, calm and sarcastic as she lifted the book up to her face. 

"You're welcome then," Lucas said with a grin. 

"Want some more reading snacks?" he added, shaking the almost empty sounding box of cereal. Max shrugged, keeping her eyes diligently on the book. 

"Come on, you gotta help me finish these, need to eat the evidence to get away with my crime," Lucas pleaded.

"Ugh, fine. If it keeps you out of prison," Max sighed dramatically, taking one hand away from the book and extending it towards him, her palm up. 

"Thank you for this, really don't know how I could've explained it to the kids," he explained, his tone melodramatic, coming back over and shaking the box to pour cereal onto her hand. Max kept her eyes on the book, and no she did not notice at all how he gently placed his hand under hers to help her catch the Cocoa Puffs and how he muttered out a sorry as the crumbs from the bottom of the box scattered onto her palm and the bench under it. Nope, she was totally focused on the book where… shit, she'd totally lost her place. 

"Well enjoy, and good night," Lucas said, taking a step back again, going to quietly open the door of the cabin. 

"Good night. See you tomorrow," Max said, finally looking at him again, seeing him in the doorway, the porch light illuminating the tired but kind smile on his face. 

"See you," he echoed, his gaze holding hers for just a moment longer, and then he disappeared inside. 

The next day was hot and sunny, and the whole camp was busy as Monday kicked off the last week of activities. Max had been antsy the whole day, hyper-aware of Lucas whenever she saw him in the corner of her eye, at the breakfast table with his campers, passing her in the yard between activities, when he had quickly dropped by the arts and crafts cabin in the middle of the afternoon’s painting class to ask Maddie to borrow some extra pencils. But with both of them being so busy, they hadn’t had any time to talk. Though, with both their cabins being in dinner prep duty, Max figured it would be easy enough for them to sneak off for a couple of minutes. But that didn’t turn out to be the case, as one of the campers from cabin two dropped and broke a whole pile of plates, and most of the pre-dinner prep time was spent taking care of the incident.

It wasn’t until after the dinner had been eaten and the cabins were busy at work with dish and clean up duty, when Max figured it was a good time to sneak off. Done scraping leftover food from the last plate, Max looked up and across the kitchen, looking for Lucas. As she spotted him from across the room, she noticed with a jolt that he was already looking at her and as their eyes met he gave her a small smile as he helped one of his campers load the jugs of milk and juice back into the fridge. Max quickly answered his smile but then she had to turn away. Looking straight at him as he smiled at her like that was suddenly all too much. It made her hands clammy and her tongue heavy and made the achy feeling in her stomach from last night on the porch return. She still wasn’t sure if she hated it or not. So she brushed it off, going back to work on loading the plates into the huge dishwasher and soon they were all pretty much done, and they could let the restless campers go out and enjoy their free time. 

"Come on, Lucas! Come and see the fort me and Sid made in the woods behind the cabin!" Max heard one of Lucas's campers pleading him and turned her head just slightly to glance at them from the corner of her eye. 

"Okay, okay, I'll come and check it out," Lucas agreed, nodding at the kid who was yanking him by the arm towards the door. 

"Just need to take care of some counselor stuff and then I'll be right there, okay?" he added and Max turned away again, going to hang her apron, biting down on her lip as excitement bubbled up inside her chest. He must’ve been thinking the same thing she was. 

"Ugh, fine. But when you're done you have to pretend to infiltrate the fort and we get to attack you!" the kid said, mischievous excitement in his voice. 

"Alright. You guys better go and prepare then!" Lucas replied and even though she wasn't facing him, Max could practically hear the grin on his face. The kid ran off with a conspiratory laugh, leaving the kitchen along with a couple of other kids, the room getting emptier by the minute. 

“All done here. Is it okay if I go?” Max heard Lucas ask the other counselors still left in the room.

“Yeah, sure, we’re almost done here,” Kevin replied, crumbling up a wet kitchen towel in his hands and making a show out of throwing it into the laundry hamper next to Max. Pretty sure it would miss, Max quickly extended her hand, grabbing the towel and plunging it in, finishing the throw.

“Nice one, Mayfield!” Kevin yelled out, coming over and lifting his hand up for a high five.

“Maybe you should try out for the team this year?”

Max accepted his high five, all the while rolling her eyes.

"I’m not sure my reputation can take that hit," she remarked with a smirk.

"You're saying you're too cool for the Tigers?" 

"Kinda am, yeah," Max replied, going over to help Maddie put the rest of the clean trays into the cupboard. 

"Ouch, that hurt, Mayfield," Kevin said, drawing his hand to his heart. 

"It's the truth though," she replied with a shrug and a smug grin, Maddie next to her huffing out a laugh and rolling her eyes at the banter. Max smiled too, shutting the cupboard door and facing the rest of the room again, seeing Lucas had already left, leaving the three of them alone in the room. 

"So? We all done here?" she asked, looking around the kitchen. 

"I think so. Kevin?" Maddie said, also looking around, inspecting her surroundings. 

“I think we’re good,” he echoed.

"Which is great cause I want to get one more quick swim in. It's been _boiling_ today!" he added, walking backwards towards the door, casually pulling off his counselor shirt and wiping his face with it, all the while managing to flex his muscles at them. Max rolled her eyes, looking away from him. 

“He’s such a bonehead,” she huffed out and Maddie giggled, as they too headed out the door. They stepped into the golden evening light, the sun still shining bright above the lake. While Maddie talked, wondering if she should go for a swim too, Max tried to subtly look around the yard and the cabins surrounding it, trying to spot Lucas. Seeing that the door to the arts and crafts cabin was open despite swearing she’d closed it after cleaning up after the painting class, she knew that's where he had gone. 

"Well, umm, you go and swim. I think I'll just go hang out in the counselor cabin, see if they’ve fixed the fan yet," Max interrupted Maddie. 

"I sure hope so! We won't be able to sleep a wink if they haven't," Maddie said, letting out an exasperated sigh. 

"Tell me about it," Max replied, feeling restless, wanting to get out of this conversation already. 

"Well, see you later then!" Maddie finally said, starting to head towards the lake with a wave of her hand. 

"Have a nice swim!" Max replied, and as soon as Maddie turned her back to her, she made a beeline for the arts and crafts cabin, looking around as she walked up the creaky wooden stairs, making sure no one was paying attention to her. But it seemed that like Kevin and Maddie, most of the campers and counselors were also cooling off by the lake, and the yard between the cabins was mostly empty. 

Max walked into the cabin, the evening sunlight streaming in through the slats of the drawn blinds, catching the dust particles floating in the air. Her gaze swept over the room, its walls lined with racks where water painted art the campers had made earlier was drying on. 

"Lucas?" she called out in a half-whisper, trying to spot him in the dimly lit room. She wasn't absolutely sure that this was where he had gone, but she had a gut feeling that he was somewhere close. 

"Over here," he answered, walking out from behind a hanging tarp. He stopped in the middle of the room and for a second they just looked at each other from across the floor. And Max tried really hard not to focus on the golden stripes of soft sunlight that fell on him. 

"Hey," she said instead, taking a shaky step forward, trying to shake herself out of the strange stupor. 

"Hi," he replied, starting to make his way to her too. 

"Good of you to fit me into your schedule. You know, with the upcoming fort raid and everything," Max said, trying to ease her nerves and lighten the mood. It helped, as Lucas let out a laugh, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. 

"Yeah, can't be late for that," he said as they stopped a couple of feet from each other. 

"Maybe I can help you craft a strategy? Put all that time we played D&D into good use, you know," Max suggested, tilting her head as she looked up at him. 

"That could help, yeah. Haven't decided if I should go with a longsword or a slingshot yet," Lucas explained, a familiar jovial glint in his brown eyes.

"And that is a vital thing to decide. It's good that I'm here, can't have you going into battle without a strategy," Max replied with a laugh.

"Yeah, it is good that you're here," Lucas echoed, laughing as he looked down at her. But as he did, something in his face shifted. The laughter was still there, but there was something else as well, something calmer, something peaceful and quiet, swirling deep in the depths of his dark eyes. And it paralyzed Max completely, her feet rooting into place on the worn wooden floor, his gaze holding her captive **.** And then he reached out for her, cupping her cheek as he carefully pulled her close to him, his lips meeting hers in a way that was so incredibly gentle that she could feel her mind completely blanking, the different conflicting thoughts that had filled her brain for the past week all quieting. She could feel the laughter still radiating from him, golden like the evening sun, but there was also tenderness in the kiss that had never been there before. She couldn't put her finger on what exactly was different about it, but it was there in such a strong but understated way, in everything he did. In the way he slowly moved his hand from her cheek, his fingers weaving into her hair, still wet from swimming earlier. It was there in the way his lips brushed against hers, slow and languid, so different from the hurried kisses they usually shared, worried they would be walked in on at any minute. Now it was like he was taking his time, and there was such a quiet confidence and calm in it which made Max's brain just melt. And as it did, she took him with her, his whole body seeming to exhale against her as she pushed up on her toes to return the kiss. 

And at that, everything just got so much better. The push and pull of their lips, slowly gaining momentum, the soft touches of hands on faces, on arms, on backs, the quietest of sighs sneaking out along warm breaths. Bringing her arms up to rest on Lucas’s shoulders, Max's hands went up to cup the back of his head, her fingers running along the short tight curls at the nape of his neck. She was sure she could feel the goosebumps that erupted on his skin at her touch and then it was like a dial had been cranked up, his hand on her waist holding onto her that much tighter, their kisses growing heavier, their pulses picking up as they dove in again and again, venturing deeper with each kiss.

Max didn't realize they were moving until Lucas backed up straight into the hanging tarp. 

"Shit!" he yelped out, his forehead bumping against hers. 

"Sorry, I didn't…" she started, her own voice sounding hoarse and foreign to her. 

"No it's fine, I should've…" he started, taking hold of her upper arms as he sidestepped away from the tarp, moving them both out of the way. 

"I forgot that was there," he continued, looking over at the tarp, an embarrassed grin on his face and from this close Max was sure she could almost see a flush on his face. And if it was visible on him, she was sure she was as red as a tomato right now. She dared to glance up and meet his eye and as she did, she saw him looking at her attentively, his gaze fleeting over her face. Max was just about to step away and apologize for her red face, to say it was just the hot weather, that it was nothing, but then he spoke, worry and apology in his tone:

“Oh shit, did I headbutt you? I’m so sorry, I really didn’t mean to,” Lucas rambled, lifting his hand to her face, going to gently examine her forehead, his gaze worried and concentrated, the touch of his fingers light and careful against her burning skin. With all the sensations that had coursed through her these past few minutes, Max hadn’t even registered that his forehead bumping against hers had hurt. It was only now she was wondering if the lightheadedness and the rapid sound of her heartbeat in her ears had been caused by that or the kiss. Or both.

“Did it hurt? Your forehead’s a little red but I don’t know if that’s the bump or…” Lucas said, his eyebrows knitting together just slightly as he kept on studying her forehead, still staying incredibly close to her. The embarrassment finally overwhelmed her enough to snap her out of her trance, and Max took a step back, bringing her own hand up to rub her forehead.

“Don’t worry about it, it was an accident. And I’m sure it’s just my face being red. It’s a hot day, you know,” she hurried to explain, creating a little more space between them with another step backwards, hoping it would help her catch her breath again. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Lucas answered with a nod, his hands awkwardly hanging in the air between them for a second before he figured out what to do with them and shoved them in his pockets. 

“I think I should go for a quick swim. Try to cool off before going to sleep,” Max wondered aloud, looking out the window, through the blinds at the sunny outdoors and the lake water glinting from behind the trees. 

“That’s a good idea,” Lucas agreed.

“I’d do the same thing, but I’ve got that fort attack planned and all,” he added, a grin tugging at the corner of his lips. Max blinked, it taking her frazzled brain a moment to catch up to what he was talking about. 

“Oh, right, right,” she said, finally remembering his deal with the kid.

“Well you should hurry, actually. Don’t want to be late for the raid, Ranger,” she continued, awkwardly reaching over to punch his shoulder. 

“You’re right, that would be awful battle etiquette,” Lucas replied, his eyes following her hand as she drew it back. 

"It would," Max replied, just feeling like she needed to say something. Lucas looked away from her, glancing at the door leading outside, but still stayed in place. Max couldn’t read his mind, but she could still take a guess on what he was thinking about. That he knew he was supposed to go, but he didn’t want to. Didn’t want to leave this fragile, secret moment, wanted to linger in it just for a moment longer, to bask in the magical and unsettling and exciting uncertainty for a while more. Because that was why she hadn’t dared to move either. His eyes found hers again and as they did, Max felt the painful swooping in her stomach once more, and for a fraction of a second she wanted to just say “screw it” and go back to him, to kiss him until the feeling went away, until all these weird thoughts and feelings made sense. 

But then there was a sound from outside, a group of kids squealing excitedly as they ran past the cabin and towards the lake, and that seemed to snap them both out of their stupor.

“Yeah, so, um, I’m gonna go. Have a nice swim,” Lucas muttered, avoiding Max’s eye as he walked past her and to the door.

“Thanks,” she replied, figuring she’d hang a bit behind as per usual, giving him a head start to lessen the suspicion. 

“Have a nice raid,” she echoed his words and at the doorway he paused, turning to send one more smile her way. A smile framed by the golden sunlight flooding in through the open doorway and making his kind eyes glow.

“Thanks. See you later,” he said and then he walked away, closing the door behind him, leaving Max alone in the room, her mouth frozen in a quiet “see you”, her heart still beating million miles an hour. And by now she was sure it wasn’t just from the bump to the head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I hope I can keep this weekly update schedule going, though the later chapters need more time and editing to get them posted, so I guess we'll see. I hope you enjoyed this chapter! In this fic, I really wanted to try out a different kind of dynamic with Max and Lucas while still keeping true to their main characteristics, so I hope it came through in the writing. Also, a couple of you said in the comments that you were surprised to see them kiss so early, and that was actually one of my earliest ideas for this fic, switching it up and having them kiss right away and not dragging it out for twenty chapters like last time hahaha! But my love for slow burn isn't going anywhere, it'll just unfold in a slightly different way. But yeah, hope you liked this chapter, I'd love to hear your thoughts and predictions in the comments! Also thank you for the comments on the first chapter!


	3. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camp is nearing its end and Max is trying to enjoy the time her and Lucas have left before summer ends and they'll have to forget everything that has happened between them and pretend it never happened. But getting close to the end of camp has her worrying that maybe they haven't been careful enough about keeping their thing a secret. They're on the home stretch, they can keep up appearances for a couple more days before they part ways, right?

As the last week of Camp Lake Jordan continued, every day was even hotter than the one before. By Wednesday when the indoor activities were over for the day, pretty much all the campers ran straight down to the lake to swim and cool off. The beach and lakeshore were full of excited yells and screams as kids ran around in the water, splashing and racing each other. Being one of the counselors in lifeguard duty, Max walked along the waterline, looking around, trying to spot if there was anything going wrong amongst the chaos. Even with her aviators on, she still needed to lift up her hand to shield her eyes from the sun and the light reflecting from the water. She couldn’t wait until her shift was over and she could also take a dip in the lake.

“Max! Come look at this!” Max turned to the beach to see Emma and Chelsea kneeling on the sand.

“Whatcha got there?” Max asked, walking over to the kids, taking one more look around before sitting down next to them.

“We're making my Barbie Dream House out of sand!" Chelsea explained, showing off the little mound of sand they had started to work on. 

"Yeah, plus it's gonna have a dragon living on the roof!" Emma added excitedly, shoveling sand into a small plastic bucket. 

“That looks great! Good job you guys!” Max said, plopping down onto the warm sand, the girls exchanging proud grins.

“So, are you gonna go swim?” Max asked them, looking over at the lake.

“Hmm, maybe later. The boys are playing some weird game they invented yesterday and it’s a mess,” Chelsea scoffed with a roll of her eyes.

Max looked over to the water to see a big group of kids in some sort of game that included a lot of splashing, yelling and chasing each other. For a second she wondered if she should go and keep them in check, but then she saw that there were two counselors playing the game alongside the kids. Squinting her eyes to see who they were, she saw Kevin and also Lucas, who was currently flinging around a kid that was squealing with joy. As her eyes slowly focused on him across the blindingly bright waves, Max felt her stomach squeeze as her gaze zeroed in on him, on his bright smile, on his laughing eyes, on the easy and confident way about him. And yes, also on the rest of him, the water on his skin catching the sunlight as he moved and turned, wading in the waist-high water. How did he manage to look so freaking good?

"Is Lucas your boyfriend?" Emma suddenly asked, blunt in a way only an eight-year-old can be and Max turned to see both the girls looking at her, curious and waiting for her answer. 

"What? No, no he's not. We're just friends, he's just my friend that is a boy. That's perfectly normal, girls can be friends with guys and the other way around, there's nothing wrong with that," Max quickly explained, her voice sounding hurried and slightly high-pitched and a little bit too defensive. 

"Okay," Emma said with a shrug, returning her focus back on the sand sculpture. 

"My sister has a boyfriend," Chelsea pointed out, looking over at Max excitedly. 

"Yeah?" Max asked, eager to change the subject.

"Yeah, but I don't think they're boyfriend and girlfriend anymore, my sister said he's a douche nozzle," Chelsea continued, her eyes glinting mischievously. 

"Woah, woah, you can't say that, Chelsea, come on!" Max hurried to point out, though she did find it kind of hilarious. 

"Sorry," the girl said, her tone relaying that she was anything but, and went back to work on the sandcastle. 

Max turned to look around the beach again, nothing looking out of place as the kids continued to run up and down the shore and splashing in the water. Maddie was further along the shore, standing on the dock, her hands planted firmly on her hips as she seemed to be scolding Bobby and Sid who apparently had tried to play chicken again. Max's gaze moved along the lake, from the kids playing with a beachball to the ones having a swimming race. And naturally her eyes drifted back to the group of boys and their game again, her gaze remaining slow and unfocused, the heat of the day getting to her. But when she did look over at the group, she noticed with a jolt that Lucas was turned towards the beach. And he was looking right at her. 

There were a good thirty feet between them, and she still had her sunglasses on, but despite it, she could swear she could see the deep warm brown of his eyes, feel their gaze on her from across the water. The sun continued to beam down on her, but she could still feel a shiver zip down her neck and back. It wasn't like there was anything particular indecent about the way he looked at her, he was just stood in place in the water, a soft, secret smile on his face. But it was precisely the secret of it. That she knew what was behind that smile, and so did he, but no one else in the world would never know, could never know. The secret was only theirs to share, and even though they still didn’t talk much about it, it was still enough to give Lucas access to her inner thoughts and feelings more than ever before, more than anyone else probably ever had. And it scared her, made her breath catch in her throat. But she also kind of liked the idea of it. So she looked back at him, the smallest of smiles quirking up at the corner of her lips as she pushed up her sunglasses to rest on top of her head. She was acting like some dumb crushing schoolgirl but she didn’t really care at the moment. 

Max wasn’t sure how long exactly their eyes were locked across the water - it must’ve been somewhere between two seconds and two years - but suddenly she blinked awake, seeing from across the way as one of the campers ran over to Lucas, yelling and furiously splashing water on him. Getting caught off guard, Lucas fell down into the water with a splash and a high-pitched yelp. His head submerged under water for a second before coming back up, his arms flailing as he drew in a breath. Before she even realized it, Max was up on her feet, looking out at the water to see what was going on.

“I got you!” the camper yelled out in triumph, splashing Lucas once more before turning away and going to terrorize some other unexpectant swimmer. 

“You did, yeah,” Lucas admitted, getting up, running his hand over his face.

“You okay there, dude?” Kevin asked him from a few paces away, busy serving the beach ball back to one of the campers.

“Yeah, yeah, all good,” Lucas replied, still continuing to rub his face, his eyes especially.

“But I think I got sand in my eye or something. So I’m gonna head in and clean up if that’s okay?”

“Oh yeah, for sure, man. It’s the change of shift in five minutes anyway so it’s no problem,” Kevin said and at that Lucas nodded, starting to wade through the water to get back to shore, continuing to blink and rub at his eyes. 

“I’m gonna go and help him out. But I’ll be back to see the final product, okay,” Max explained to Chelsea and Emma who just replied with short okays, their concentration solely on the sandcastle. So Max turned away, starting to head after Lucas and uphill towards the showers.

Lucas reached the building first, walking inside and making a beeline for a sink to rinse his eyes, not even noticing her walk in after him.

“You okay?” Max asked and Lucas jumped a bit, turning to look at her from where he had stuck his head under the running water.

“Oh, hi! Umm, yeah, I’m good, just, you know…” he rambled, splashing more water on his face.

“Got sand in your eyes,” Max finished his sentence, going to grab a towel that was hanging on a hook and making her way to Lucas. 

“Here,” she said, handing the towel over to him as he straightened back up. 

“Thanks,” he said, his eyes still squeezed shut as he took the towel, going to run it over his face.

“But,” he started, finished drying his eyes, lowering the towel from his face.

“I guess that’s what I get for getting distracted from the game,” he continued, his mouth in an embarrassed grin, dropping his head slightly to the side, his hand coming up to the back of his neck. And as he did, Max's gaze followed every movement intently, unable to look away. She wanted to reach out and touch him so bad.

“You’re right, need to keep your eye on the ball,” she pointed out with a grin of her own. Lucas huffed out a laugh, looking up at her from the towel in his hands. Max wished she were holding onto something too, as now she was just twisting the fingers of her hands together, trying to stop them from betraying her and reaching out for him. The warmth in his kind brown eyes was just too much, and Max had to look away, pressing her lips together to smother that persistent idiotic grin being around him always brought out these days. They stood in silence for a moment, listening to the sounds of campers running outside. The small locker room and showers were empty for now, but it was only a matter of time when the first of the swimmers got back. 

“I um…” Lucas started and Max looked up to meet his gaze.

“I like your swimsuit. It looks cool.”

“Thanks, it’s new,” Max replied, the corner of her mouth quirking up. Here she was again, feeling like such a girl. But she really did appreciate the compliment, she liked the swimsuit too, she’d bought it at the start of the summer, figuring that even if she would only have the community pool to swim in, the bright turquoise and orange palm tree prints would make it feel a little bit more tropical.

“Was that the distraction?” she asked as a joke, but Lucas seemed to take it to heart, his eyes growing huge as he shook his head furiously.

“No! No, that’s not… Well I mean, I noticed it, but I swear not in a creepy way or anything, I-I just hadn’t seen you wear it before,” he explained, shifting in place nervously as he tried to explain himself. Max just shook her head, biting down on her lip to catch a laugh.

“Don’t worry, dude, it was just a joke. It’s all good,” she reassured him. 

“Really? Cause I was worried you’d be mad at me. For breaking the whole “separation of church and state” rule,” Lucas explained, his eyes steady on hers, trying to see if she was being genuine. 

“Nah, I think you got away with it,” she commented, taking a step back to look around the corner at the door leading outside.

“Plus, you know,” she continued, turning back and taking the smallest step forward, her hands continuing to twist together.

“There’s always a little leeway with rules like that,” she said with a shrug. 

“I’m starting to think that you’ve been totally spacing out in Civics class,” Lucas said, looking down at her, an easy smile on his face as he too took a step closer. 

“And I’m thinking that you’re paying way too much attention to this. It’s just a metaphor,” Max said back, continuing to get closer to him, feeling like she was being pulled by an invisible string. 

“An analogy,” he corrected and Max let out an exasperated sigh, playfully shoving his shoulder. His skin was still cool from the lake water.

“My point exactly,” she said, settling just a couple of inches from him, keeping her hand on him, slowly dropping it to loosely hold onto his arm.

“Well I’m sorry for taking this seriously,” Lucas said with a laugh, his head starting to duck towards hers.

“Don’t,” Max breathed out, meeting his deep eyes for just a second before they fluttered closed as their lips met, her pushing up towards him, eager to finally feel him close to her. Like his arm, the rest of him was also still a little cool after being in the lake, and it drew her in on the hot August day. Max let her hands roam up his arms and to his chest, feeling his heartbeat under her palm. At that, she could feel him jump a little, so she leaned away.

“Sorry, was that not okay, I…” she started but he cut her off:

“What, no, I-I was just… surprised, you know,” Lucas stammered.

“You sure?” Max asked, her teeth grit together in embarrassment. 

“Yeah, it’s all good,” Lucas confirmed with a nod, but still confusingly took a step away. But before Max could freak out about it too much, figuring she’d crossed a line and made him uncomfortable, he just set the towel down on the bench in front of the lockers. And just like that he was back, his hands now free, one of them coming to cup her cheek.

“We’ve got maybe three minutes before shift change,” he pointed out, oddly matter of fact, considering his lips were a mere inch away from hers now. 

“I can work with that,” Max replied with a shrug and then he was kissing her again, deep and fast and purposeful. She returned in suit, her arms wrapping around him, her hands going to draw exploratory sweeps on the skin of his back. He wasn’t staying still either, the hand on her cheek dipping into her hair and his other hand gently holding onto her hip, the touch warm through the swimsuit fabric. It had started out cool, but now Max could barely remember it anymore; everything was so warm, the touch of his hands, slowly sliding onto her neck and lower back, his lips, moving relentlessly against hers, his breath, falling so warm on her face when they paused to catch their breaths. Those pauses never lasted long though; they were running out of time and they knew it. Their three minutes were soon over, and so was the camp, only few more days of it left. So Max wanted to get everything out of her time, wanted to make every second count before they went home and everything had to go back to normal. When they had to forget this weird little footnote to their friendship and pretend it had never happened. She did feel a little guilty about it, like she was a little kid trying to eat all the cookies she could while her mom's back was turned. 

But it seemed like Lucas was thinking along the same lines, eager to keep kissing her while he still could. Both his hands were on her back now, and his touch on her skin above the scooped cut of the swimsuit made Max shiver. Her hands wandering back to his chest, she pushed further up on her toes, her heels leaving the cool tile floor as she pushed deeper into the kiss _,_ feeling his fingers pressing against her spine. Jesus, this was good. 

There was a loud sound as the door into the showers was swung open, sounds of footsteps and chatter coming from around the corner. Max's heart dropped right through her stomach as panic hit in, and she scrambled away from Lucas, making space between them, her hand coming up to wipe at her mouth. It was only a couple of heartbeats later when Corey and Tommy walked in, carrying their towels and swim trunks, ready for their lifeguard shift. 

"Oh, hi," Corey said, the two stopping in surprise as they spotted Max and Lucas. 

"Hey," Max said, giving them a short and awkward wave. Tommy’s eyes went from her to Lucas and Max couldn't bear glancing over at him but she really hoped they didn't look as suspicious and guilty as she felt. 

"Weren't you guys in lifeguard duty?" Tommy asked. 

"I got sand in my eyes so I came to rinse it off," Lucas explained and Max tried her best to ignore the hoarseness of his voice. She could just hope his eyes were looking watery and red enough for them to buy it. 

"Hey, their shift was almost over. Cut them some slack, man," Corey said to Tommy, heading for the lockers. Tommy just shrugged, apparently deciding this wasn't something to worry about and went to get changed too. 

That left Max and Lucas alone in the room again. For a moment they just stood there frozen, listening to the clanks of locker doors opening in the other room, not able to speak or look at each other. From the corner of her eye Max could see Lucas shifting in place, and before he could say anything, she hurried to break the silence first:

"Well if it's four already, I'm gonna go for a swim," she declared, her voice little more high-pitched than intended and spun on her heel to head out the door. 

"Okay," Max heard Lucas voice from behind her but she didn't stay and listen as she hurried outside, desperate to get away from the situation as quickly as possible. That had been close. Way too close. First her campers were suspecting something was going on between them and now this? Her and Lucas were getting too comfortable now, too reckless, taking things too far. It was time they toned it down, got more careful about this. There were just four days of camp left, they couldn’t get caught right on the home stretch. They were just one wrong reckless move away from this whole thing blowing up in their faces, and after that there would be no way they could ever salvage their friendship. And that was the last thing Max wanted.

The next day was cool and cloudy for a change and it was easier to stay inside for the day as the preparations for the final camp olympics kicked off in full force. Both Max and Lucas were busy guiding their campers through team building and camp shirt-making. And all the rest of the time was spent organizing the events, making lists of the participants, drafting schedules, and making sure everything was ready for the big day. They only got one moment to themselves, between nightly cabin checkups and heading back to the main house for a counselors meeting. As they walked the path up from the cabins, Max kept her eyes forward but she could feel Lucas slowly inching closer to her as he walked beside her on the dirt path. Before he could say anything, she hissed at him:

“Don’t. Someone could see.”

“Who?” he asked, genuinely confused, looking around at the dark woods surrounding the path.

“Jason Vorhees?” he joked, echoing back to their conversation on this same path almost two weeks ago now. Max could hear the smile in his voice and it hurt her to not join his joking, to agree with him and laugh it away. But the panicked feeling of almost getting caught at the locker room yesterday appeared to have made permanent home in the pit of her stomach and she couldn’t bring herself to ignore it.

“I’m serious,” she whispered back.

“We’ve been way too reckless about this. Just look what happened yesterday. We have to be super careful for the rest of the week. We can’t give anyone any reason to suspect anything is going on, or every single person at school will find out about it the second the semester starts. Including our friends,” Max whispered, looking up at Lucas at her last words. They seemed to hit him as his face turned deadly serious as he looked ahead at the main house up the hill. 

“You’re right. Yesterday was… too close,” he agreed and Max tried to fight how his words made her think back to yesterday and how eager his kisses had been, how he’d held her close, pulling her to him and…

“Yeah, we can’t let that happen again,” she answered, pushing away her straying thoughts. 

“Yeah,” Lucas echoed, nodding and Max was relieved that he’d understood her and agreed to be more careful. But it still didn’t mean that when they passed the shed where the firewood was kept in and Lucas’s eyes flickered over at her, deep and gentle through the dark of the corner of the yard the lights didn’t quite catch, she would’ve said no. Instead she checked the empty yard super closely for signs of anyone being outside, and made Lucas wait five whole minutes and take an extra lap along the path before he could follow her into the cramped little shed that smelled like sawdust and tree sap and where he proceeded to kiss her breathless, without another word passing between them. 

On the morning of the camp olympics, Max felt like a zombie walking into the mess hall for breakfast. She had been up until 4 am helping to make the camp diplomas for all the kids, and now at seven she was barely awake. Joining the lineup for breakfast, she yawned, tightening her ponytail and prayed that there was still coffee left. The campers around her were even more hyper than usual, running around and talking excitedly about the day’s competitions. And Max was happy to see them all so excited, she just wished they would hold off on the screaming until she’d fully woken up.

“Hey, I saved this for you,” Max turned to look ahead, having reached the breakfast counter. Lucas’s cabin was on meal duty this morning and he was standing behind the counter, and Max had no idea how he already looked so awake and energetic this early in the morning. He reached for something under the counter and took out a big cup of coffee.

“We ran out a bit ago but I figured you’d need some so I put some aside for you,” he explained, handing over the cup to her. Max just blinked her eyes for a second, taking in what he was saying. 

“Oh, wow, thanks,” she managed to say despite her tired brain. She took the cup of coffee and looked up at him, his smile so kind it made her heart leap. 

“No problem. Need you on your A game so when my cabin crushes yours you can’t blame it on being tired,” Lucas answered, a boyish glint in his eye.

“Oh really?” Max replied, ready to answer the challenge.

“If I were you, I’d just worry about winning before thinking about how to justify it.”

“Oh the win is in the bag, don’t you worry about that.”

“Is it now? Well…”

“Oh come on, can you guys just get a room so the rest of the people here can get their breakfast?” both Max and Lucas turned to look at Kevin who’d appeared next to Lucas from the kitchen. His tone was joking but it still made Max panic. Not him too! They’d been so careful the past couple days, there was no way he knew anything, right? 

“You go get a room with yourself, Kevin,” she shot back at him, quickly grabbing her breakfast and pulling a face at him. He lifted his hands up in apology but Max just walked off, not giving him a chance to get another dig in. She went to sit with her campers, the whole table of kids listening intently as Maddie gave them the rundown of the day’s schedule. Max listened along, starting her breakfast and lifting up the cup of coffee to take a sip. The coffee had gotten a little cold but she appreciated it nevertheless, the kindness of the gesture from Lucas making her not mind it as much. She met eyes with Lucas from across the room, him still working behind the counter and he lifted his brows in question. She smiled back, giving him a thumbs up and he mirrored it, returning to his work with a smile on his face. With all the messiness going on between them, he still was the best friend Max could wish for. She really hoped they’d played this right and their friendship would last through this. Because she couldn’t lose him. 

The camp olympics started, and the day was quickly filled with loud cheers, bitter rivalry, team chants and an awful lot of running around. Max was one of the counselors responsible for the forest obstacle course, so she’d spent the day boosting kids up ledges and helping the smallest ones across the rope obstacles. She figured she’d gotten assigned a pretty good spot, as she wasn’t overseeing the sand-sculpture building competition in direct sunlight, or deeper in the woods on the mercy of the mosquitoes. From the edge of the forest she also had a pretty good view on the other events going on and could cheer on her campers at they took part in the egg and spoon race and the knot-making competition. 

“Way to go Chelsea!” Max yelled out as the girl crossed the finish line first in her group, the egg on her spoon wobbling but not falling off. Cabin four was doing really well and Max was proud of them. Though winning wasn’t that important, she would be lying if she wasn’t hoping they would beat Lucas’s cabin, especially after his challenging remarks at breakfast. Lucas was in charge of the egg and spoon race, his time mainly spent picking up eggs from the ground and helping the campers put them back on their spoons. Now with the latest round over he was clapping and cheering, congratulating the racers. Max met his gaze, giving him a self-satisfied grin over Chelsea’s victory and he just rolled his eyes, mouthing something Max was pretty sure was “just you wait!”. She mouthed back an “I will!” before turning back to her task as a new group of campers neared the obstacle.

“Alright guys let’s go!” she cheered them on as they got to the short climbing wall.

“Be careful, no shoving!” she added when the first kids started to pull themselves up the wall by the rope, one of them shoving the other off with her elbow. 

“Yeah, slow down for a second guys!” Tommy echoed from where he was on top of the obstacle, his job helping the kids up. The kids bickered, claiming the other was cutting in front, and Max cut in, proposing a round of rock, paper, scissors to decide who would climb the wall first. The kids begrudgingly agreed and soon the group was heading up the wall one by one, Max helping them get their footing. One of the kids was particularly eager to get up the wall but not fully grasping the technique so his feet were kicking all over the place.

“Just set your feet on these ledges here, buddy, it’s easier to…” Max started, getting closer to the kid, but apparently coming too close as he accidentally kicked her in the face with full force. Max yelped, falling backwards on her back on the forest floor. Her head spinning, she held her tongue not to swear in front of the kids, squeezing her eyes shut, the pain flaring. She could hear people yelling out to her, asking if she was okay and she pressed her hand on her forehead. There was no blood, just dirt from the kid’s sneaker, but damn did it still hurt.

“Hey, hey Max? Look at me, are you okay?” Max felt someone’s hand on her shoulder and holding onto her wrist, gently pulling away her hand from her forehead. She blinked her eyes open, her face still in a grimace from the pain, and saw Lucas crouching on the ground next to her, his face concerned, his eyes scanning her face. 

“Hi,” she breathed out and his gaze snapped from her forehead to her eyes. He looked so scared.

“Hi. How are you feeling? I didn’t see what exactly happened, did you fall and hit your head?” he asked, shifting closer. Max had no idea how he’d gotten to her so quickly. He’d just been on the other side of the yard, he must’ve sprinted to get to her. 

“I-I’m good I think, just got kicked in the face by a nine-year-old,” Max explained, an embarrassed grin on her face, wincing as Lucas gently touched her forehead. 

“Sorry, sorry!” he said, pulling his hand away.

“Where does it hurt?” he asked, his tone so concerned, Max felt bad about making him worry like this. She wanted to assure him it was all okay, wanted to shut him up with a kiss and reassure him. 

“Everything okay over there?” Lucas turned his head back to look at Tommy who was making his way down from the climbing wall, the kid who’d accidentally kicked Max in toe.

“I’m fine,” Max said with a clumsy thumbs up.

“But I think I might need to sit the rest of this out.”

“For sure, I can manage the obstacle for the last hour, no problem,” Tommy assured her, turning to comfort the guilty looking kid and telling him he could go and continue the race. Lucas turned back to Max, helping her sit up better. 

“Meg’s in charge of the first-aid today, she should be here any minute now,” he explained, and Max nodded, closing her eyes again, sitting up with her back against a tree, her head still spinning just a bit. She took a couple of deep breaths before opening her eyes again, and saw Lucas still hunched over her, deep worry in his eyes.

“Dude, I’m fine. Just need a bag of frozen peas or something and I’ll be good to go,” she assured him, going to reach for his arm to squeeze it, but noticing his hand was already holding onto hers. In front of all of camp.

“Are you sure?” he asked, unbothered by this, but Max’s brain was reeling for completely non-head trauma-related reasons now. He was holding her hand. In broad daylight, in front of all the campers and counselors that were around. Yes, most of them had returned to their activities when it had turned out she was fine, but still! She should’ve been annoyed at him for not listening to her, for not sticking to being extra careful like they’d agreed. But she was so stunned she couldn’t bring herself to be annoyed at him. 

“Yeah,” she nodded, biting down on her lip. He was holding onto her hand so tight, and his hand felt so warm and so right in hers, but it also got her all flustered. They weren’t supposed to be doing this.

“Your, um…” she pointed out, in a voice barely above a whisper, nodding her head towards where his hand was holding hers. He looked confused for a second, looking down at their clasped hands. Then he seemed to realize what she was talking about, as he inhaled sharply, pulling his hand away.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to, it was just a reflex,” he explained, looking over his shoulder at the other people further away. 

“It’s okay,” Max assured him, trying to brush it off but Lucas shook his head.

“No, we agreed to be careful, I shouldn’t have done it I just…” he said, pausing to squeeze his eyes shut.

“I just got so worried about you,” he finished, looking at her again, the concern in his eyes having lessened just a bit, but they were full of something else now, something different, something Max wasn’t sure she was brave enough to start deciphering just now. 

“Thank you. But I’m fine, I swear,” Max said giving him a tight-lipped smile. 

“Okay,” he breathed out, still staying close to her and Max felt a strong urge to reach out to touch his face, to reassure him and kiss him to make him feel better. But of course she didn’t. She shouldn’t, she couldn’t. 

“Okay, I’m here! Max, tell me what happened?” Meg’s loud voice came in and the two quickly moved apart.

“A kid accidentally kicked me in the face at the wall climb,” Max explained as Meg crouched down to their level, her brows furrowed in concentration as she examined her face.

“Okay, there isn’t any blood or anything, are you feeling light-headed, woozy?” 

“I umm…” Max started, and for some reason her gaze strayed over to Lucas who was listening to Meg intently.

“A little, but not that much anymore.”

“Can you see okay? Is there any blurriness?” Meg added and Max blinked her eyes.

“No, I’m seeing fine,” she said.

“Okay, and are you feeling nauseous at all?” Meg asked and Max shook her head.

“Well it doesn’t look like a concussion. But we’ll definitely need to get you some ice. Can you stand up?” Meg asked and Max nodded, planting her hands on the ground for support and starting to push herself up.

“Woah, careful,” Lucas said, quickly coming to wrap her arm around his shoulders, helping her get up. All of which Max appreciated, but it sure didn’t help her lightheadedness. 

“Thanks,” she muttered, trying her best to just focus on getting upright. 

“I can take it from here, Lucas? You can get the next round of the race started?” Meg said, wrapping Max’s other arm around her shoulders. Lucas blinked, looking from the two of them to his station were a crowd of waiting kids had started to form up.

“Yeah, of course. I mean, if you’re sure?” he rambled, looking back at Meg and then at Max. And she wanted him to stay, she really did. Wanted him to keep holding her and make sure she was okay. But she knew that would blow their cover for good. 

“I’ll be fine, go,” she assured him, giving him a smile she hoped would assure him. 

“Okay,” he finally agreed, unwinding her arm from around his shoulders, giving her arm the faintest, undetected squeeze before he let it drop. But Max noticed, her eyes snapping up to meet his once more before he started to head back to his station. Her side already felt weird and empty without him there. 

“I wish my guy friends would treat me so nicely,” Meg commented when they started to slowly make their way up the hill towards the main house. 

“Uh-huh,” Max just voiced, her gaze following Lucas’s receding back.

“Shit, I swear even my ex didn’t treat me as nice,” Meg continued with a laugh. Max joined the laugh half-heartedly, the fear over them getting found out growing.

“Is he single?”

“Huh? Who?” Max asked, confused. 

“Lucas. Is he dating anyone, or are you guys..?” Meg asked, her voice trailing off in a question. 

“Oh no no, gross,” Max replied, scrunching up her face in disgust. She couldn’t give Meg any reasons to suspect them.

“He doesn’t have a girlfriend. Never has,” she added. 

“Never? Seriously?” Meg asked, sounding surprised. 

“Yeah, why?” Max asked, her brow furrowing. Why was talking about this making her feel so weird?

“Well you know,” Meg started, glancing over at Lucas from across the grassy yard. 

“For an AV club geek, he’s kinda cute,” she continued with a smirk, looking back at Max.

“I mean, umm, I guess,” Max said, feeling her stomach squeeze uncomfortably. Cause sure, she knew Lucas was good-looking. She wasn't blind. But he'd never really been one to catch the eye of the girls at school, he'd never dated anyone. So now hearing Meg talk about him like this made Max feel… She wasn't exactly sure what.

"Sorry, you guys have been friends forever right? So this must be like me checking out your brother or something,” Meg pointed out in apology, waving her hand in dismissal. 

“Oh yeah, no, there’s nothing between us,” Max said, feeling worse and worse. Because technically, officially, there wasn’t anything other than friendship between the two of them. And that’s how they’d agreed to keep it. That’s what she’d said she’d wanted, and still did. Right? Meg kept of talking but Max didn’t focus on her words, turning to look at her. To be honest, she’d never imagined Lucas dating anyone. Their friend group and dynamic had remained the same for so long, a big change like that had never crossed her mind. And now she was starting to question why that had been the case. Because she’d had a couple boyfriends, and that hadn’t been a big deal, so why would that be the case if Lucas would get a girlfriend? Someone like Meg, who was quite popular but not mean or superficial; outgoing, friendly and smart. With gorgeous dark curly hair and long eyelashes and an event coordinator position at the Student Council. Why wouldn’t Lucas go for someone like her? And why was the mere thought of that happening making Max feel like she could puke? 

Max sat out the rest of the events, sitting on the porch of the main house, holding up an icepack to her face, cheering the campers on. It was only when it came time for the awards ceremony, that she got up and joined Maddie and the campers as they received their second-place medals. And no, she barely noticed that Lucas’s cabin only got third place.

The award ceremony was followed by a celebratory meal of burgers and ice cream and the last campfire. After the excited campers finally went to bed, the counselors all returned back to the campfire, the backup store of smore ingredients being brought out and the boombox propped on a tree trunk. Max sat on the bench, holding her stick with a marshmallow close to the fire, laughing along with the rest of the group as Kevin performed a dramatic reenactment of one of the kids that had fallen in a quite spectacular fashion on the obstacle course.

“He’s fine though, he was fine!” he hurried to add, holding out his hands. 

“He was, thanks to me!” Meg pointed out with a proud smile, garnering applauds from everyone for the medic of the day.

“Yeah, I swear the guy was covered from head to toe in Star Wars band-aids, you might wanna expand your arsenal, Meg” Kevin commented, jumping to sit on the bench next to Maddie, grabbing the bag of marshmallows from Corey. The topic of conversation soon shifted again but Max focused on her marshmallow, pulling it away from the fire and getting ready to assemble her smore. Turning around, she looked for the box of graham crackers.

“Here,” she turned to see Lucas say, leaning towards her from where he was sitting couple of seats over, handing over the crackers.

“You read my mind, thanks!” Max answered with a smile, taking the box from him.

“Is your head feeling better?” Lucas asked as Max picked up a piece of chocolate from a plate.

“Yeah, it barely hurts at all anymore,” she assured him, carefully squeezing the marshmallow between the pieces of cookie and chocolate, careful not to get any of the stickiness on her fingers.

“That’s good to hear,” Lucas continued, having to raise his voice just a little as the rest of the counselors had burst into an impromptu rendition of a “Heaven is a Place on Earth” as it came on. 

“Yeah, it is!” Max agreed, laughing and having to guard her smore with her hands as Jennifer who was sitting next to her jumped up from her seat and joined the song and dance around the fire. It was getting louder, more and more people joining in, celebrating the last night of camp; for the summer and for forever for some of the counselors. It was a really nice summer night, cool after the hot day, the flames and smoke of the campfire flowing up to reach the night sky, which was clear, dotted with numerous stars. With the cozy warmth of the fire, the flickering golden glow it cast on the people smiling, singing and dancing around it, and the happy pop song playing, Max couldn’t help but smile, so happy for the turn of events that had led her to be here. 

Biting into the smore, the sweet sugar of it spreading on her tongue, Max turned her head to look at Lucas who was still sitting on his bench. He was smiling too, following the dancing going on around them, the flickering glow of the fire playing against his skin, illuminating his face. After a minute he turned too to catch her gaze. Max felt her face warm. Had he seen her staring at him? Or sensed it somehow?

The song faded into the next, the harsh electric guitars and drums of “Pour Some Sugar on Me” flowing out of the boombox speakers, eliciting whooping sounds from the other counselors, Jennifer climbing up to dance on one of the benches, lifting up a bottle of beer she had pulled from out of nowhere. Max laughed, joining the other girls in a supportive cheer.

Through the music, she heard Lucas quietly clearing his throat and when she turned back to look at him, she saw him gathering a handful of graham crackers and tilting his head away from the campfire, his brows raised in question. _“Wanna get out of here?”_

Max bit her lip, not sure how to answer. They needed to be discreet and careful, but they had been, right? They’d been as careful as they could, and they were so close to getting away with it, they could relax for a second. And besides, if they slipped away now, no one would notice anyway. Max looked around at the other counselors, checking that they weren’t paying attention to them. They weren’t, a couple of others joining Jennifer’s dancing, the bottles of beer being spread around, the music being cranked up. Max turned back to look at Lucas, mouthing a silent “sure”, and feeling a thrilling warmth in her chest as she saw a secret smile spread to his face in the warm glow of the fire.

Despite the rest of the counselors being distracted, they still couldn’t take any risks, so like usual, Max slipped away first, trusting Lucas to wait a couple minutes before following. She got up, apologizing quietly as she almost tripped over Tommy’s bag and then walked out of the golden circle of the fire, letting her steps guide her as she looked up at the starry night sky above her. She ended up walking towards the lake, being drawn by its serene mirror-like surface, no wind disturbing the waves. She stepped onto the dock, looking out at the expanse of the water and the silent woods on the other shore. 

"Didn't manage to swipe any of the beers, hope that's okay with you," Max heard Lucas point out lightheartedly and she turned to see him walking down the path to meet her. 

"You didn't? Well you can head back then, that's the only thing I wanted from you," Max pointed out in faked disappointment, crossing her arms over her chest, and turning to look at the lake again. She heard Lucas let out a soft laugh as he reached the dock, his shoes clacking against the worn wood. 

"I can go if you want?" he suggested, but Max shook her head, turning back to look at him again. He was already so close to her, his brows raised in question, his brown eyes searching hers. 

"Don't," she breathed as he stopped in front of her, her having to tilt up her face to keep looking in his eyes. 

"Okay," Lucas replied, his voice soft and Max suddenly didn't know where to look, her gaze flicking from his eyes down to his lips. He seemed to notice, as he begun to lean forward, his hand lifting to go and touch her face. And as much as Max wanted to go along, get swept away by him for just this once, she still heard the sounds of music and the other counselors from the campfire. It was way up the hill and there were trees obscuring the beach from view but it was still risky. 

"Lucas," she said, her voice hushed, having to physically hold herself back, clenching her fists and biting down on her lip to stop herself from kissing him. Lucas blinked as he leaned away, seeming to realize the situation they were in. 

"Oh, right, sorry," he said, taking a step back and awkwardly shoving his hands into his pockets. They stood there, silent and apart for a minute, listening to the sounds of laughter coming from the campfire. But then Max needed to break the silence. This was their last night, they couldn't ruin it. 

"But we can sit and talk, if you want? That won't look suspicious to anyone," she suggested, gesturing over at the dock. 

"Yeah, sure," Lucas agreed with a nod and so they sat down on the dock, careful to leave a respectable distance between one another, just in case someone were to walk down to the beach and see them. The awkwardness lingered for a moment longer, but soon enough they were back to the comfortable chatter they always shared. They ate the graham crackers Lucas had smuggled from the campfire, and soon they were lying on the dock, their shoes off and their feet hanging in the cool lake water, looking up at the endless night sky above them. 

“So I guess I should thank Dustin for twisting his ankle,” Max pointed out, taking another bite of a cookie. Lucas turned to look at her, confused, so she continued: 

“Otherwise I would’ve just spent my summer in the arcade or sitting on my couch.”

“I’ll remind you to thank him on the first day back in school,” Lucas said from beside her, wiping away crumbs from his shirt. 

“That’s so crazy to think about. Less than a week and then we start our Senior year,” he added.

“Right? Where has the time gone? Didn’t we just start ninth grade?” Max wondered.

“It really is all going so fast,” Lucas agreed and they fell into a silence for a moment.

“So, you got your college picks all lined up?” Max asked Lucas, turning her head to look at him. He furrowed his face in thought, looking up at the starry sky. 

“I guess… I mean I’ve had my top three set for a year now. It just feels so daunting to actually have to start applying for real,” he explained.

“Hey, at least you have a list,” Max pointed out and at that Lucas turned his head to look at her too.

“I still have no clue what I wanna do after graduation,” she said with a frustrated sigh.

“You still have time to figure it out. You can go talk to Mrs. Martin about it, I’m sure she has tons of options to tell you about,” Lucas assured her but Max scoffed.

“She just tells everyone to go to Indiana State,” she pointed out. The guidance counselor at Hawkins High was famously biased towards her alma mater. 

“Well it’s not the worst option, if you’re not sure what you’d like to do,” Lucas said with a shrug.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t get me far away from here. That’s the one thing I’m sure I want after graduation,” Max explained. Because even if she had no idea what she wanted to study, she just knew she needed to get out of Indiana to do it. Would she come back? Maybe. But she was so sick of the small-town Mid-West setting and mindsets, she needed a break.

“Back to California?” Lucas asked, curious.

“Maybe?” Max wondered.

“Or the East coast, Chicago, who knows,” she continued.

“Well, just don’t forget about me wherever you go,” Lucas said with a laugh, his words lighthearted on the surface, but they hit Max harder than he probably intended them to. Because even though she’d known for a long time that she wanted to ditch this small town after high school, she had never really connected it with having to leave her friends as well. And suddenly the thought of having to leave Lucas hit her like a ton of bricks. 

“Of course I won’t,” she replied, hearing a dangerous amount of honesty and sincerity creeping into her voice as she held Lucas’s gaze. It was all getting too real, his eyes steady and open and honest on her, her throat was starting to tighten at the thought of having to leave him, her hands were itching to reach out and hold his. She needed to fix this. 

“As long as you won’t forget me when you go to your fancy Ivy League school,” she added with a laugh, hoping to lighten the mood. 

“I won’t. Never,” he said, the weight of his words and his earnest gaze making her face heat up and her stomach twist. How could such simple words make her feel so much? She had been fighting back the whole night, but now she just couldn’t help herself, awkwardly scooching over to get closer to him on the dock, her eyes flicking up to meet his, only to see he was wordlessly leaning closer too. She had just a second to register how the stars were reflected on his dark eyes, before she closed hers, crossing the remaining inch between them and setting her lips on his. 

The kiss was so gentle, his lips brushing against hers tenderly, slowly, like he was afraid she would disappear, or be scared away. Max suddenly realized this was his kiss goodbye, and the thought of it broke her heart. She leaned away, the realization spreading in her like ice water in her veins, making the night air feel even colder. Lucas started to lean away too but she stopped him, reaching out to hold onto his arm. 

“Sorry I’ve made you go through all this,” Max said, feeling so guilty over everything all of a sudden.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen, I’m sorry it’s put you in such a weird position,” she added, her stomach sinking and the cold creeping in. She was such a terrible, selfish person, treating him like this, playing with his feelings just because she’d been bored. He’d been nothing but kind and understanding, been her friend for ten years and now she was well on her way to ruin everything, dragging him along with her.

“Hey, I’ve been as much a part in this as you have, there’s no need to apologize,” Lucas assured her, scanning her face, his gaze turning worried.

“Yeah?” Max asked tentatively, trying to ignore how small and vulnerable her voice sounded.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Lucas said, his voice and gaze and everything about him so gentle and reassuring that Max couldn’t help but lean over and let him kiss her again, his lips on hers warm and comforting. She never wanted to stop kissing him, but remembering back to their conversation about the school year starting, she was sharply reminded that soon she’d have to. And she needed to get herself together before that. 

“Okay,” Max said, clearing her throat as she pulled away, sitting up a bit.

“So next week, when we go back to school…” she started, trying to be matter of fact about this, pushing away her feelings that were becoming less complicated but no less overwhelming.

“No one will know about this, especially our friends. I won’t tell anyone, you can count on me,” Lucas completed her sentence.

“And I won’t either. We don’t want the guys to hear about this, they’d never let it go,” Max said with a determined nod.

“Yeah, they can never know,” Lucas agreed and as Max looked over at him, a flicker of genuine panic seemed to appear on his face for a second. But then he looked back over at her with a kind smile and she figured she must’ve imagined it.

“Right,” she agreed with a nod. She turned to look up at the shore, seeing the glow of the fire beyond the pine trees and hearing the music and happy chatter from the campfire. “Forever Young” was playing and Max let out a laugh as she heard the other counselors singing along to it, the emotion and flair of the rendition making up for the lack of pitch. Looked like they had nothing to worry about when it came to someone possibly seeing them. Max turned back to Lucas to tell him as much, but when she did, she saw he was already looking at her, his gaze completely disarming her with how much raw emotion was packed into it. Sadness, longing, infatuation… all those feelings she had been too scared to name in his gaze earlier today, but now all clear in the pale moonlight. And she had no idea how to respond to it all, what to think. Lucas reached out his hand, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, the gentle touch of his fingers against her face making her shiver. 

“One more kiss? For the road?” he asked, his voice quiet, but a glint in his eye. And Max rolled her eyes at him but still nodded in agreement, being pulled to him by a gravitational force, leaning down over him to set her lips on his, for just this once allowing herself to not care about doing it out in the open like this. The only thing in her mind was the need to chase those emotions in his eyes. And she knew that soon enough she would need to lean away, to walk away, to wave him goodbye at the end of camp, to meet him again on the first day of school as if nothing had changed. But for now she let herself get lost in it for one more secret moment, let herself selfishly revel on the feeling of his lips moving softly with hers, on the gentle touch of his fingers on her cheek, on the steady beat of his heart under her palm on his chest. They’d sworn they wouldn’t forget each other, and those words had been true. Because even if she knew she had to, come tomorrow, how could she ever forget this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It acts as kind of an end of part one of this fic, the next chapter will have a change of setting with the start of the school year, as well as a change in point of view, as we'll go from Max's pov to Lucas's. I hope you've enjoyed the story so far and I'm excited to move on to the next half of the story. Hope you are too! I'd love to hear your thoughts on the chapter or the story in general in the comments, or over on my Tumblr @lucascsinclairs.


	4. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the first day of Senior Year and the whole party is back together after the summer. Lucas is doing a pretty good job at not thinking about the past summer, and answering his friends' questions about camp without giving away anything. But then he sees Max again and suddenly it's a lot harder to pretend nothing has changed between them.   
> (Lucas's POV)

There was a tradition in the Sinclair family to always take a group picture of the kids on their first day of school. It had started on Lucas’s first day of kindergarten with a picture of him smiling wide, puffing out his chest as he proudly wore his new t-shirt with space rockets on it. Erica joined him in the next year’s picture, having just learned how to walk, clinging onto her brother’s jacket as she stood next to him. This year’s picture would be the last one with both siblings together, as Lucas would be going off to college next year. And he could see his mom seemed a little wistful and nostalgic as she posed the two of them in the front porch. 

"Come on Erica, closer to your brother!" Mom urged, peering through the camera viewfinder. 

"Mooom!" Erica whined, throwing her head back dramatically. 

"I need to go already! Me and Kelly are meeting at Oak and Maple to bike to school together! It’s the first day of high school, we can’t be late!” she explained, while taking a begrudging step closer to her brother. 

“Wait, I thought I was giving you a ride?” Lucas asked, confused, turning to look at her.

“Eyes on the camera guys!” their mom called out, more annoyed now than wistful, and both of them snapped their faces forward, plastering wide picture smiles on their faces.

“With you and your nerd friends? I don’t think so,” Erica hissed through her teeth.

“Jerk,” Lucas replied through his smile, bumping his shoulder against her side.

“Dweeb,” Erica shot back, shoving him right back and then their mom had to tell them to cut it out once again so she could finally get a good picture.

Fifteen minutes later Lucas was sitting on the driver’s seat of his car, driving along Maple Street, Mike next to him frantically going through his backpack, making sure he’d remembered to bring a scarf El had left at his house.

“Found it!” he announced, pulling out the bright purple fabric from the bag. Mike would usually go pick up his girlfriend and drive her to school himself, but with his car being repaired at the moment, they were heading to school their separate ways this morning. 

“It’s like seventy degrees out, does she really need a scarf?” Lucas pointed out as he made a left, turning onto the street Dustin lived on.

“Well, no, but she left it at my house last week and I wanted to give it back,” Mike explained, smoothing the bright fabric of the scarf with his fingers before carefully placing it back in his bag. Mike and El had been together pretty much since she moved to town at the start of Freshman year and were honestly really good together. Didn’t mean Lucas didn’t find them super sappy sometimes. 

The car pulled up in front of Dustin’s house and Lucas honked the horn as he saw Dustin waiting by the front door, lifting one of his crutches in an enthusiastic wave. Lucas had been over at Dustin’s house a couple days ago and he’d explained that his ankle was getting better but his doctor had said he still needed to keep weight off of it for a couple more weeks.

“Hi guys! Ready for Senior year?” Dustin called out, excitedly, as he threw his crutches on the backseat, getting in after them.

“I don’t know why you’re so excited about it, man. It’s just a regular year with added stress,” Mike pointed out and Dustin huffed, starting to once again explain why this school year would be their best one yet, as Lucas backed off the driveway and started the drive to school. The streets were filled with students on bikes and on foot as they neared Hawkins Middle and High School, the parking lot basking in the morning sun as Lucas looked around for a free spot. The parking lot was filled with cars and people who were chatting and walking in groups, some excited and nervous, some looking like they’d rather just have another two months of summer vacation.

He finally found a spot in a row informally reserved for Seniors and parked the car.

“See? Another example about how this year is going to be awesome!” Dustin explained, swatting Mike’s shoulder from where he was leaning forward between the front seats. They got out the car, grabbed their backpacks and joined the steady stream of students heading for the front doors of the school. There was a sign hanging above the tiger mural on the brick wall, wishing them “Welcome Back Tigers Class of ‘89!” in bright green block letters and a couple people from the student council were handing out flyers for a pep rally later that week. Lucas recognized Meg from camp and she gave him a cheery “good morning!” and handed him a flyer.

“Since when are you friends with Meg Parsons?” Mike asked, confused as they walked into the school, the bright hallway abuzz.

“She’s one of the counselors from camp. I’m not like, _friends_ friends with her or anything,” Lucas explained, stuffing the flyer into his pocket.

“Oh how was camp? You still haven’t told me about it,” Mike asked as they walked through the crowd to reach their lockers.

“It was fine, the weather was good, there was a new cook so the food was better than last year and…” Lucas started to explain, catching Dustin looking at him expectantly.

“And of course it totally sucked without you being there, man. It was utter torture for the whole three weeks,” he spoke, shifting his tone dramatically, furrowing his face into a pained frown.

“Sounds better,” Dustin commented with a smile, setting down one of his crutches to lean against the wall as he went to open his locker. 

“You headed a cabin with Kevin then? How did you guys survive without me? You didn’t tell me the details on Friday,” he asked as Lucas opened his locker a couple doors from his. All three of them had the same homeroom class of Honors Chem.

“We only got third place in the olympics but other than that we did pretty well,” Lucas explained. 

“We had a lot of new kids this year so it took a while for all of them to get used to camp life but overall I think…”

“Oh hey, they’re here!” Mike interrupted him, looking over the crowd and waving at someone further up the hallway. Dustin and Lucas turned to see who he was talking about and saw Will answering Mike’s wave, turning back to point them out to El who was trailing slightly behind him, talking to… Lucas felt his throat go dry all of a sudden, his grip on the metal door of the locker tightening.

Max turned her head quickly to look ahead at them, her red hair flowing as she did, a bright colorful focus point in the sea of students. And then she spotted them from across the way and a wide toothy smile grew on her freckled face and Lucas felt his stomach drop through him. He had seen her countless times before, hundreds of times in this very same hallway, but somehow seeing her now felt different, pushing the air out of his lungs and making 50s doo-wop music play in his brain. Seeing her felt rare, momentous, even though it had barely been a week since he’d seen her last at the end of camp. He’d tried not to think about it, only talking about the surface level details of camp when asked, trying not to dwell on it too much and to forget about it and move on, like they’d agreed they’d do. But seeing her again now, it caused all the memories he’d tried not to think about come crashing back in. Max in her bright yellow counselor shirt, standing on the dock, hands on her hips, oozing authority and confidence as she guided the kids through their swimming lesson, at the art station, talking in a hushed and gentle tone, helping her campers with their watercolor paintings, sitting on the bench in front of the counselor’s cabin, reading a book under the yellow lamplight, pulling a face at him, her in her neon-printed swimsuit and aviators, looking beyond cool as she walked the beach, and then of course… Her jumping to sit up on the stored away ping-pong table, drawing him in to kiss her, all those secret, stolen moments in store rooms and sheds, with nothing but her lips and her warm, thrilling touch and the easiness, mindlessness of it all. How she’d always…

“Hey, Lucas, you awake?” The dreamy music in his brain came into a screeching halt and Lucas jumped, feeling Dustin swat him on the shoulder. He blinked, looking around and saw that Will, Max and El had reached them and were all currently looking at him in confusion. 

“Huh, what?” he asked, inwardly cringing over how clueless he sounded, and turned to Dustin who was looking between him and Max. Shit shit shit, act cool!

“I just asked how your summer was?” El explained, her eyebrows still furrowed a bit in confusion, but her tanned face brightening up at the question.

“Oh, it was good, thanks for asking,” Lucas answered, trying to conjure up a polite smile and focus on El, and not look at Max who was standing beside her. It was hard though, as she was chewing gum and blowing bubbles out of it and her lips were the only thing he could focus on. Because he knew how they felt on his, and no one else in the world knew it. 

“That’s nice. Did you have a good time at camp, Max said her cabin beat yours?” El pointed out, grinning, bumping Max’s side with her elbow. They all turned to look at Max, whose eyes zeroed in on Lucas’s for just a second, something flashing in them before she was back to her cool exterior, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yeah, even with one counselor with a head injury we were still the better cabin,” she announced to everyone with a proud and mischievous glint in her eye.

“You didn’t win though, only got second place,” Lucas reminded her, turning to his locker again, trying to seem unbothered.

“Yeah, but we still beat you guys,” Max repeated with a shrug and they all huffed out laughs or rolled their eyes, going back to putting their backpacks into their lockers. Once Lucas was done grabbing his books and binders, he shut the locker door and turned to look at the others again. And as he did, he could swear he caught Max looking at him for just a second before she turned back to follow the conversation Dustin and Will were having about lunch seating. He let his eyes stay on her just for a second, waiting for her to look back, but she didn’t, instead she just kept on chewing her gum, propping her binders against her hip, the pins on the collar of her trusty denim jacket glinting in the fluorescent light of the hallway. She was the picture of cool he knew her to be. And why would she look back at him? They’d clearly agreed that they were going to forget what had happened that summer, and never to talk about it again. She was just holding to her end of the deal. But why then had she been looking at him in the first place? 

Lucas didn’t have time to mull on the thought for much longer as the school bell rang, making them quickly grab the rest of their things and head for their classes, with calls of seeing each other for lunch. 

Classes started off familiarly enough with Honors Chem, the only difference from last year was the teacher mentioning the SATs a couple of times during the class. The period before lunch was English Lit and the group of boys went their separate ways. Lucas hadn’t really looked at his schedule to see who he had the class with so he was happily surprised to see Will walking into the class the same time he did. They took their seats in the middle part of the room, talking about their summers - Will had spent it working at Melvald’s alongside his mom - as students continued to file into the room, the teacher going through her notes at her desk. The bell rang and Lucas focused on the teacher as she began to welcome them all to the course, starting to go through practical information as she walked to the door, going to close it. Just before she did though, there were voices from the hallway and she kept the door open as a few more students burst into the classroom, seeming out of breath.

“Sorry Ms. Marsh, we’re just coming from gym!” one of the girls explained and the others nodded, catching their breaths and pushing back shower wet hair from their faces. And Max was one of them, currently twisting her damp hair into a quick bun on top of her head. And Lucas couldn’t help but feel his stomach twist too.

“Alright, no problem. Just don’t make this a habit,” Ms. Marsh told them, gesturing to them all the take their seats, the places in the front rows the only ones left. They quickly did, muttering a couple more sorries and thank yous and no, Lucas was not disappointed at all that in her hurry Max didn’t seem to notice him. 

The class continued, the teacher explaining the syllabus for the semester, talking about the books they were going to read, the authors they were going to focus on, the assignments and projects they were scheduled to do. Half an hour into the class she walked around the room, giving out handouts about the first assignment, and as she did, the class erupted into chatter about the groups for it, people leaning over and turning back in their seats to talk to their friends. Lucas had just received the handout from Ms. Marsh and turned to the front of the class when he saw Max had turned back in her chair too. And it looked like she’d just spotted him. She looked surprised, her brows high and her eyes wide as she gripped onto the back of her seat. Lucas wondered what he should do. Even with the agreement at the end of camp, they were still best friends, right? So it would make sense for him to say hi to her. It wouldn’t seem suspicious, right? But before he had decided his plan of action, she turned back to face forward again. And she didn’t look back for the rest of the class. 

When the lunch bell rang they all filed out of the classroom.

“She ran out fast,” Will pointed out as they got to the hallway.

“Who?” Lucas asked, trying to subtly stretch his neck and look over the crowd for Max.

“Max. I thought we could all walk to lunch together cause that’s where we’re all going anyway,” Will explained.

“Oh, well you know… If she had gym before, she might want to drop off some stuff at her locker,” Lucas suggested, not really sure why he was trying to come up with an excuse for her.

“Oh yeah, right,” Will agreed and dropped the subject as they got to the cafeteria and joined the lunch line. After getting their trays of food they started to walk across the room, trying to see what table the others had sat at. 

“Feast your eyes upon this glorious table!” Dustin announced proudly as Lucas and Will got to them, most of the group already seated.

“It’s far away from the cold draft of the door and the reeking trash cans, the vending machine is in the vicinity and so is the lunch line,” Dustin continued to explain, seeming like a real estate agent showing off a luxury mansion, not a dingy cafeteria table which looked identical to all the other ones in the large room. 

“How did you ever get your hands on this prime property?” Lucas asked with a faked gasp, setting his tray down and sitting next to Mike as per usual.

“He was out the door the second the lunch bell rang, I’ve never seen anyone run so fast with crutches, it was so impressive!” El explained from her seat on the other side of Mike, smiling brightly and Dustin extended his hand out to her in a high five. He was sitting opposite her, Will taking his usual seat next to him and opposite Mike, which left only one empty seat for…

“Look at the location of this table! Damn, Dustin! Good job, man!” Max exclaimed as she dropped her bagged lunch and can of Coke onto the table, taking a seat opposite Lucas and running her hands along the off-white surface of the table. 

“Thank you, I had a lot of time to sit around this summer because of my foot, and according to my detailed calculations, this is the perfect table,” Dustin explained with a proud smile and Max nodded appreciatively. 

“Let’s just hope no one steals it from us,” Will pointed out and Dustin turned to him.

“I will defend this table with my life, Byers! You can count on me.”

“Plus,” he added, digging into his chocolate pudding.

“It’s just common courtesy to respect the tables, isn’t it? And I wasn’t dumb enough to take the jocks’ table, so we should be good, right?” he added, less confident, but they all nodded, assuring him that they and their table would be fine. 

They started to eat their lunches, the cafeteria around them getting louder as more students got in, chatting loudly and excitedly about their summers and their plans for the new school year. Max was leaning her elbows on the table, taking bites of her sandwich as she talked to El about the soccer tryouts she would have after school. She had taken her hair out of the bun and it was now hanging loosely around her face and falling down to her shoulders, curlier than usual from still being a little wet. Still talking, she lifted her hand up to wipe mayo from the side of her mouth, and Lucas couldn’t help but look at her lips again, just before she moved her hand to brush hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. She had such cute ears, how had he not noticed it before? 

Shit shit shit shit, he was staring at her, wasn’t he?? Lucas jolted awake as the sudden realization hit him, and did so so quickly that he bumped his knee to the underside of the lunch table. 

“Shit!” he exclaimed, out loud this time, and reached down to hold his knee. 

“Woah, you okay? What’s going on?” Mike asked from next to him, looking at him in confusion, dropping his piece of pizza back down onto his paper plate. The rest of the group also turned to look at Lucas with worry and confusion, and Lucas tried his best not to feel the way Max’s eyes were locked on him from across the table. Because even if he was pretty sure she hadn’t noticed him gawking at her, he had a feeling she still knew somehow. 

“It’s nothing I just… bumped my knee. Don’t worry about it,” Lucas explained dismissively and Mike shrugged, going back to explain something that they’d talked about in Chem class. The rest of the lunch hour went on as usual, but during it all Lucas avoided looking straight at Max as much as he could, which was tricky as she was sitting right in front of him. But he couldn’t risk it. He was sure that as soon as she saw his face she’d clue into what was going on. That she’d see how embarrassing and dumb he was being, and get mad at him for not sticking to their agreement. 

With ten minutes left until the next class, they started to head their separate ways for their elective classes. Will and El had Art, Dustin Drama, Max Debate and Mike and Lucas AV. But with Mike walking El to her class as per usual, Lucas started to head towards the east hall of the school by himself. He was just about to walk up the stairs, when he heard someone calling for him from behind him.

“Lucas, wait up!” 

He turned to see Max jogging up the hall to catch up to him.

“Hey,” Lucas replied, trying to sound casual, and not like he was freaking out. He was sure he’d failed, she’d noticed him staring at him after all and was about to yell at him. But she wouldn’t do that in front of everyone in the hallway, right? Having reached him, Max stopped a couple steps from him, squeezing her binders in her arms, looking around at the people passing them by, nervous. 

“Hey can we step over there for just a sec?” she asked, pointing over at the empty space under the stairs.

“Uh yeah, sure,” Lucas said, confused by her tone that was nervous instead of angry. What was going on? Max nodded, weaving through the steady flow of people and reaching the cramped space under the stairs and next to the garbage cans. Lucas followed her and when they were out of the way of the other students, she turned to look straight at him.

“That assignment for English Lit. About _Wuthering Heights_ ,” she started.

“Yeah?” Lucas asked, even more confused now.

“Want to work on it tomorrow? After school?”

“Umm,” Lucas started, seriously having no clue what was going on. 

“My parents won’t be home till late and soccer practice moved to Tuesdays and Thursdays so I have Wednesday nights free,” Max explained quickly, glancing over his shoulder at the clock on the wall.

“Okay, umm, should I ask Will to come work on it too?” Lucas asked. This was just a group project for a class, they’d done this many times before. 

“What no, why?” Max asked, furrowing her brow, now the one confused.

“He’s… in the class too?” Lucas explained, slowly, getting more and more perplexed by the second. What did she mean? 

“Oh,” Max voiced, seeming genuinely surprised. She pressed her lips together and looked away in thought, shifting in place restlessly, the sound of footsteps on the stairs above them not helping with the hurriedness. Max looked back up at him then, and she looked… frustrated? Angry? Like she was waiting for something, expecting something from him? Should he say something? Lucas really wasn’t sure what she meant with all of this. Well he had a tiny hunch in the back of his mind but that was ridiculous, just wistful thinking, it couldn’t be what she meant by this. But just in case...

“Well I mean…” he started, and her gaze only intensified on him, like she was coaching the words out of him.

“I’m sure he can handle it by himself too, or find someone else to group up with.”

“Right? That’s what I thought too,” Max agreed, nodding quickly as the two-minute warning bell rang. They both turned to look up as it did and then Max hurriedly said, already taking steps towards the stairs:

“So tomorrow? My house? At four?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lucas replied, still not 100% sure what it was he was agreeing on. But she gave him a nod and a tight-lipped smile before turning to run up the stairs. Lucas was heading the same way too but hung back, leaning onto the railing of the stairwell, trying to recover from… well, what the hell that had just been. Had he just agreed to a study date?

No, it wouldn’t be a study date. It was just the two of them, as friends, working on a class assignment. Alone. In her house. With her parents away. Lucas gripped onto the steering wheel of his car, totally zoning out as he drove. Had she really asked him to do that? And had he really said yes?

“Woah, dude, watch out!” Dustin yelled out from the passenger seat beside him and Lucas focused back on the road, swerving slightly to avoid the squirrel running across it. Oak Street was pretty quiet as usual, so no harm was done and he steadied the car as he kept on driving towards Dustin’s house. Mike had gone over to El and Will’s after school so Lucas and Dustin were the only ones in the car. 

“Remember when we found that dead skunk in Mike’s backyard in third grade and had a funeral for it?” Dustin said with a laugh, remembering back to their disastrous attempt at a funeral that had ended with Mrs. Wheeler finding the half-rotten skunk corpse they had stuffed in the fridge while they finished digging the grave for it. Let’s just say she hadn’t been super happy with them, even though they insisted that they just wanted to pay their respects and do the right thing by the poor dead animal. 

“She wouldn’t let us come over for weeks after that,” Lucas huffed out a laugh, thinking back to it.

“Did Mike tell you he got a new tv in the basement while you were at camp?” Dustin said after a while.

“His dad got a new one for the living room and he got the old one. It’s like ten times bigger than that crappy old one,” he described excitedly.

“Maybe we can go over some day after school, play NES?” Dustin continued as Lucas turned onto his driveway. 

“That would be cool, Mike said he’s got _Metal Gear_ ,” Lucas replied, driving up the driveway and parking close to the front door so Dustin wouldn’t have to walk a long way with his crutches. 

“He does! I’ve been dying to play that! We could go over tomorrow?” Dustin asked, enthusiastic, gathering his crutches to get ready to get out the car. There was a pang of guilt in Lucas’s stomach. 

“I can’t do tomorrow, I have a family thing. But maybe this weekend? We can make it an all-day thing?” he suggested, hoping Dustin wouldn’t notice his lame excuse. It seemed like he hadn’t, as he nodded enthusiastically, opening the car door.

“Yeah! Let’s do it Saturday, we can start early and then order pizzas and everything!” he planned, his smile wide. 

“Sounds like a plan,” Lucas said and Dustin gave him a thumbs up before climbing out the car. And with a “bye, see you tomorrow!” he shut the door behind him and started to head for the front door, and as he got inside, Lucas huffed out a tense breath. He hadn’t blown his cover. Not yet anyway. 

The rain pattered against the roof of the car, the droplets sliding down the windshield as Lucas sat parked along Old Cherry Road. He’d parked the car a block away from Max’s house as per usual. The group of them didn’t spend a lot of time at her house, but on the rare occasion they did, Max always asked them to park up the road just in case. She didn’t like talking about her home life, and didn’t bring it up often, but everyone had still figured that her parents, and especially her stepdad weren’t super cool with Max being friends with so many boys. Lucas sighed, lifting his head back up again, looking at the Mayfield house through the drizzle of rain outside. Max had said her parents would be away but he still couldn’t help but feel uneasy going into the house. He felt like he was walking into a trap. And not only for that reason. Max hadn’t said a word to him apart from a polite “hi” and a pointed “see you” that day at school, and he still didn’t really know what was going on, or why did she want him to come to her house. He had brought his copy of _Wuthering Heights_ and notes for English Lit, but… He had a lingering suspicion that wasn’t why she’d invited him. But he could also be completely wrong. What if she genuinely wanted to get ahead of her schoolwork and start working on the assignment three weeks before it was due? What if he was just assuming things and she’d be weirded out and he’d ruin their friendship for good? Lucas groaned in frustration and dropped his head against the steering wheel. Only one way to find out what was going on, he figured. 

He got out the car, lifting up the hood of his jacket against the drizzle of rain as he started to make his way towards the house, looking around cautiously, but the street was empty and quiet, just the sound of the train whistle from the railroad close-by cutting through the silence. Lucas walked up to the front porch, his palms starting to sweat so he wiped them on his jeans before taking what he hoped would be a calming breath and ringing the doorbell. He took a step back, shifting nervously in place, listening to the light thrum of rain on the roof of the porch. Maybe she wasn’t home, maybe she’d forgotten this whole thing, maybe he should leave and ask her about it at school tomorrow…

The door swung open and Max was in the doorway, her cheeks flushed, wearing the same blue sweatshirt she had worn to school earlier. She looked like she was holding her breath. He’d only seen her look like that a handful of times before. 

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he replied, grabbing onto the straps of his backpack nervously. 

“It’s raining out there, come on in,” Max pointed out, stepping back to make room for him to get inside. He did, with a quick and awkward “sure, thanks.” As Max shut the door behind him, Lucas looked around the living room, at its seafoam green walls, the couch and recliners in front of the tv, at the fireplace right next to the door. He hadn’t been here in years. Even though they had been friends for ten years, he could still probably count the number of times he’d been in her living room with the fingers of one hand. Huffing out a laugh, he figured he’d say it to Max so he turned to her, but when he did, he was taken aback by how close she was standing to him now, looking up at him, her lips pressed together, her eyes expectant. She didn’t need to say anything for him to know that his hunch had been right. But this wasn’t what they had agreed on. Camp was over, and so they had to be too, gone alongside with the scent of pine trees, the fresh lake air and the bright summer sunlight. But, she was still here, all of those things still lingering with her, like she had somehow preserved some of that summer air and sunlight within her. And it was reflected to him now in her gaze. So would it really be that bad if they kept this going? 

Lucas didn’t wait for his brain to catch up to him and answer that question, instead opting to answer the silent question she was projecting to him with the expectant look in her pale blue eyes. He nodded, just slightly, and then she was pulling him to her by the lapels of his jacket and her lips were on his again and he felt a deep breath leave him. Like he hadn’t been really breathing since she’d last kissed him. And maybe he hadn’t. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry it took a little longer for this chapter, but here it is now and I hope you liked it! It was fun switching up the pov and focusing on Lucas more and also changing the setting to the high school. I hope you liked this chapter, and I'd love to hear what you thought in the comments or over on my Tumblr @lucascsinclairs ! Have a good weekend!


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Max seems like she wants to keep their secret thing going even after the summer is over and Lucas happily goes along with it. But it doesn't mean that he's not a little confused about it, about what it means for them. Does Max mean to keep their thing the same as it was at camp - just occasional kisses behind closed doors - or is there something more to it now? The Homecoming dance is also coming up and for some reason Lucas can't stop thinking about it.

“Lucas, where are you off to? I’m just getting started on dinner!” Lucas heard his mom call out to him from the kitchen as he rushed by, pulling on his jacket.

“I’m going to work on that English project at Will’s again, remember? If you could just save me a plate, I can heat it up when I get back,” Lucas explained, popping into the kitchen doorway, seeing his mom working by the counter, seeing the ingredients she had spread out.

“Especially if we’re having lasagna,” he added with an apologetic grin.

“Fine, but it’s your sister’s favorite too, I can’t promise anything,” Mom pointed out but Lucas was off already, making his way down the hallway and out the door. Sure it was lasagna night. But it was also Wednesday. Which was quickly becoming his favorite day of the week. He hopped into his car and soon he was at Max’s house and kissing her in her room, her pulling him down to lay with her on the bed, reaching to peel off his jacket, dropping it on the floor. It had been three weeks and these weekly makeouts in her room was all they got, but Lucas didn’t mind one bit. At the end of camp he’d thought he’d never get to kiss Max again and now that he somehow could again, he was more than happy, feeling her soft lips against his, the tips of her fingers tracing his cheek, his jaw, brushing into his hair. And he was happy to have his best friend back too, them starting this up again having removed the awkwardness of their first couple days at school, and they were back to their familiar banter and joking. And it had started to bleed into these moments as well.

“Dude,” Lucas said, pulling away from the kiss, scrunching up his nose in exaggerated disgust.

“What did you have for dinner? Just straight up cat food?”

Max scoffed, shoving his chest and getting up slightly from where she was laying on him. 

“What? No! I had some leftovers of the tuna casserole my mom made last night, you jerk,” she explained, lightly flicking his nose. He let out a weak “ow”, mainly just for show as she crossed her arms over his chest, setting her chin on them. 

“Maybe next week I’ll actually eat cat food, see how you like to kiss me then,” Max said, her eyes brightening in challenge.

"In that case I'll stay home. Or go and actually work on that English project at Will and El's house like my mom always thinks I do on Wednesdays,” Lucas pointed out. They’d gotten away with their weekly meetings so far, their friends and family weren’t suspecting anything. But he had a feeling people would start to get suspicious of them if they’d keep working on this same English project for months. 

"Yeah right. You couldn't stay away," Max commented, smirking and not giving him a chance to reply before leaning in to kiss him again. Because they both knew she was right. She kissed him, slow and gentle, with a hint of laughter and he returned the kiss, his hand sliding up to cup her cheek as she continued to lean her arms on his chest, starting to absentmindedly play with the neckline of his shirt.

"But hey," Lucas started again after a couple of minutes, pulling away from the kiss and propping himself up on his elbows. 

"Maybe we should actually work on that assignment. Or come up with some other excuse since it’s due by the end of the week.”

“Ugh, fine,” Max said, giving him one last peck before pushing herself off of him, getting up from the bed and grabbing her backpack from the floor by her desk. She picked it up, starting to rifle through its contents as she walked back towards the bed, Lucas sitting up to make room for her. 

“I swear I have that handout somewhere…” Max muttered, her brows furrowing as the continued to dig through her bag. 

“I have it too in…” Lucas started, pointing over to where his bag was, but Max just groaned in frustration, turning her backpack over in her hands and dumping all its contents on her bed. Lucas backed away even more to give space to all the books, pens and papers falling out.

“The school year started three weeks ago, how do you already have so much stuff in your bag?” he asked in genuine surprise as Max got back on the bed, kneeling on the foot of it, on the other side of the paper pile from him. 

“I’m going to organize all these, just haven’t had the time,” she explained, starting to go through the wrinkled up loose papers. 

Lucas nodded in reply, leaning forward to join her in her hunt for the handout Ms. Marsh had given them about the assignment on the first day of school.

“Maybe you can help me with organizing all these. We can make that the new excuse once we’ve handed this thing in,” Max suggested with a smirk, picking up textbooks and dropping them on the floor and out of the mix.

“And that doesn’t sound like an excuse at all,” Lucas pointed out sarcastically, putting aside the flyer for the first week of school pep rally and the schedule for soccer tryouts.

“Right? I’m a genius, I know,” Max replied, her smile wide and her voice overly preppy as she put aside even more pieces of paper. Lucas mirrored her mockingly bright smile, but as she looked down to focus on the papers again, he couldn’t help but let his smile soften as his gaze lingered on her. This all felt so comfortable, so natural. He was hanging out with his best friend like he had a thousand times before, but now he could just lean over and kiss her if he wanted to. And it was still blowing his mind. Before he even realized he was doing it, Lucas leaned across the mess of papers on the bed and setting his hand on Max’s arm to cause her to turn her face back up to look at him, he set his lips on hers in a soft kiss, just because he could. The kiss was a quick one and he soon leaned away, looking at Max to see her reaction, seeing her eyes flicker to his, and then down to his lips for a second before looking down, her lips biting together, her freckled cheeks slightly flushed. God she was beautiful. 

Max shook her head and cleared her throat.

“Like I said, can’t stay away,” she muttered, poking Lucas’s chest as he leaned back. He could tell she meant it as a joke but even still she didn’t meet his eyes, concentrating on the papers in front of her. It was almost like she hadn’t seen the kiss coming and was taken aback by it. But he didn’t understand why, hadn’t she just been kissing him like five minutes ago? 

Lucas focused back on rifling through the papers too, all while debating if he should ask her about it, ask if everything was good. But before he’d figured out what he should say, his hand landed on a lilac piece of paper. He turned it over, smoothing the wrinkles to see it was a handout about the Homecoming Dance that was coming up in little over a week.

“You find it?” Max asked and Lucas lifted his head to look at her. He had no idea why but thinking about Homecoming so soon after kissing her felt weird, making his chest tighten. 

“No, it’s just…” Lucas explained, handing over the paper to Max. She took it, reading the cursive text on the page, her hand coming up to swipe a strand of hair that had fallen from her messy bun away from her face. And suddenly Lucas couldn’t stop himself from wondering what she would look like with her hair up and wearing one of those poofy tulle dresses he’d seen on the mannequins at Sears when his mom had taken him and Erica back to school shopping. 

“Ugh, that,” Max voiced, finished reading the flyer, her face scrunching up in annoyance. 

“It’s all everyone ever talks about at school,” she complained, giving the paper back to Lucas, focusing back on the stack of papers she was going through. Slightly taken aback, Lucas asked:

“You mean Homecoming?”

“Yeah. Every time I go to the locker rooms for gym and soccer, everyone’s talking about who they wish would ask them and what color dress they’re gonna wear and what kind of corsage they’re gonna get,” Max listed, annoyance tinting her voice.

“What’s a corsage?” Lucas interrupted her roll.

“It’s like this flower thing you tie to your wrist and then your date has a matching one. But anyways…”

“I’d just wish the whole thing was over already,” she finished with a huff, throwing another useless piece of paper over her shoulder.

Oh.

“So then, you’re not planning on going?” Lucas asked, trying to sound nonchalant about it, looking down at the flyer in his hands, folding it in half. He felt like he was sinking.

“Nah, probably not. I mean, El might convince me to go but she’ll be going with Mike anyways so… Probably won’t waste time and money on all that,” Max explained, and Lucas couldn’t say for sure, but he could’ve sworn that for a second there seemed to be something else beneath her disinterested tone as she quickly glanced over at him before focusing back on the papers on the bed. But then she continued:

“It’s just a waste of time, I could care less.”

“Yeah, makes sense. I don’t um, I don’t care about it either,” Lucas agreed with a disinterested shrug. If she didn’t care, why should he? It wasn’t like they could actually go to Homecoming together. 

“Cool,” Max replied.

“Cool,” he echoed, neither of them looking straight at the other. 

“Found it!” Max finally announced after an awkward moment of silence between them, bringing up the wrinkled-up ‘handout, and so they turned their focus on the English assignment, the Homecoming flyer ending up in the pile of other papers on the floor. 

The assignments were to be handed in on Friday after class and so after the lunch bell rang, Lucas got up from his seat to join the line forming by the teacher’s desk. He had barely taken two steps when Max appeared in front of him. For a second he worried about what was she going to say to him, as he worried he’d made things awkward between them by bringing up Homecoming the other day. But he didn’t have too long to worry as Max quickly asked, putting on her backpack:

“Hey, can you hand our assignment in? The coach wanted to see us for a quick meeting, I have to run.”

“Um, yeah, sure,” Lucas replied and no, his heart didn’t flip in his chest at the genuine “thanks!” and the grateful smile she flashed at him. And no it didn’t flip again as she leaned quickly towards him for a second, just as if she was going to give him a quick peck, before she realized where they were and leaned back, looking away with the slightest of smirks as she turned to push her way through the crowd and out of the classroom. Lucas stood in place for a second, blinking his eyes, his brain catching up with what just happened. Once it did, he couldn’t help the smile lifting the corner of his mouth as he continued his way to the front of the class, being pushed forward by a stream of other students also going to hand in their assignments. 

After handing in the project, Lucas started to head to the cafeteria with Will, his spirits still high from what has just happened. 

“Good thing I remembered to pack my own lunch today,” Will said as they walked into the busy cafeteria. Lucas turned to him, confused.

“Looks like it’s meatloaf day,” he added, scrunching up his face in disgust and Lucas turned his head quickly to look at the food on the trays as they passed by a couple of tables. Well there went his good mood. 

“Well shit. I didn’t bring a lunch today,” he sighed, already mentally preparing himself for the chewy texture of the meatloaf that was always a little cold in the middle.

“Good luck,” Will said, patting his shoulder before heading for their table at the other end of the room. Lucas sighed in resignation and walked up to the lunch line. Mike was there too, eyeing the meatloaf on the lunch counter skeptically, as Lucas joined the line behind him. “Hey,” Lucas greeted him, grabbing a tray.

“Hi. So, meatloaf day, huh,” Mike replied, sounding defeated as they slowly made their way along the line, picking up drinks. 

“Yup. Looks like it,” Lucas said, reaching for a carton of milk.

“Looks like a weekend of food poisoning,” Mike commented.

“Well they’re showing all the Police Academy movies on TV so at least there’s that to pass the time,” Lucas pointed out and Mike nodded in approval. They were quiet for a bit as the lunch lady handed them their plates of meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Lucas could smell the food from the plate. And meatloaf wasn’t really supposed to have a smell, right? 

“Hey at least there’s some chocolate pudding left,” Mike pointed out, craning his neck to see forwards in the line.

“Really?” Lucas asked, looking ahead as well. There were just a handful of pudding cups left, the students in front of them all grabbing them.

“Yeah, for now. It’s all down to luck I guess,” Mike said and Lucas gripped tightly onto his tray as they inched forward in line, slowly making their way towards the pudding. 

“Got it!” Mike announced triumphantly, swiping the second to last pudding cup from the counter. Lucas stalled, looking at the last desert left. Because yes, he wanted it for himself, but also…

“What are you waiting for? Leave it there and it’s gonna be gone in two seconds,” Mike asked him, confused, picking up the cup and putting it down on Lucas’s tray.

“Yeah, sorry, you’re right,” Lucas said, blinking his eyes, focusing again.

“I just thought…” he added as they started to move along again.

“Max isn’t here yet and she likes chocolate pudding more than me,” 

“Ookay, well too bad she’s late?” Mike said, sounding confused.

“It’s not her fault, the soccer coach called a quick team meeting just now,” Lucas explained, sounding more defensive than he probably should’ve.

“Alright, I got it, calm down,” Mike defended himself, lifting up his hands, his brows high. When they’d paid for their lunch and started to make their way to the table, he spoke up again:

“Since when did you care about Max getting the last desert over you?”

“She’s my best friend, of course I care,” Lucas answered.

“Well yeah, but last year you wouldn’t have thought twice about taking that last pudding,” Mike insisted and Lucas just shrugged, not saying anything. Mike blocked his way then, stepping in front of him and looking straight at him, his voice lowered and excitedly inquisitive:

“Did something happen at camp?”

“What? No, of course not. Get your mind out of the gutter, dude,” Lucas was quick to defend, hoping Mike didn’t notice the higher pitch of his voice and the flush of his cheeks. For a second Mike studied his face intently, as if trying to decide if he believed him or not, before shrugging and turning away and towards their table again.

“I’m just saying,” he said as they passed the jocks’ table.

“You better keep it that way. For Dustin’s Oath.”

That made Lucas stop for a second, made his stomach twist uncomfortably. The Oath. They hadn’t brought it up in four years but he still remembered what it was about, and if he did, there was a chance Dustin did too. The Oath was all he’d thought about that sleepless night in his camp bunk after Max had kissed him for the first time in the lake shed. After that he’d tried his best to ignore it, to let himself believe that maybe Dustin had moved on and forgotten about it, and it was fine. But now that Mike had mentioned it, it brought out that nagging voice at the very back of Lucas’s mind, that told him that it probably wasn’t fine, that Dustin hadn’t forgotten the Oath and all of what he was doing was wrong. 

Lucas realized he hadn’t replied to Mike as he shot an expectant look his way as they neared their table where Will, Dustin and El were already sitting. Lucas swallowed heavily, glancing over at Dustin who was waving his hands around excitedly, explaining something to El and Will. He had no idea. And Lucas felt so guilty. 

“I know. It’s all good, trust me,” he replied and Mike nodded as they sat down at the table, dropping the topic as they started to eat.

Fifteen minutes later Max joined them at the table, dropping her tray of meatloaf on the table with exaggerated disgust before joining in the conversation about something that had happened in Chem. 

“No, that’s not what happened, let me run through this again…” Mike said, most of the table focusing as he recounted the story of the science experiment they’d almost exploded. Lucas had been there in the class, seeing it firsthand, so he zoned out, picking up the cup of chocolate pudding, starting to pick at the lid. He looked back up again, just to see Max stabbing at the pile of meatloaf with her fork, eyeing his pudding. She caught his eye, giving him a playful, secret smirk, her gaze flitting down to the desert again. And he caught what she meant, and he wanted to give the pudding to her, he had a Mars bar in his backpack, he’d be fine. But… Lucas glanced sideways at the other end of the table, seeing Dustin engrossed in telling the story, gesturing excitedly. Maybe he could get away with it, but he didn’t want to risk it. Not after Mike was starting to get suspicious too. So that’s why Lucas focused back on the chocolate pudding, ripping off the lid and taking a spoonful, all while avoiding Max’s gaze.

Walking up the stairs on his way to AV class, Lucas felt someone tug at his sweatshirt sleeve. He turned to look back and saw Max climbing up the stairs next to him, subtly glancing over at him. Getting out of the stairwell, Lucas took a left, turning onto a short hallway with an out of order vending machine, Max following behind him. Right as they had stepped out of earshot of everyone else rushing along the hallway, she spoke:

“Hey, is everything cool?” Max asked quickly, looking behind her to make sure no one they knew saw them.

“Yeah, totally, why?” Lucas assured her, hoping she would buy it. But it looked like she didn’t, as she folded her arms across her chest.

“I don’t know, you were acting all weird at lunch,” she pointed out, anxiously biting down on her lip.

“Oh the thing with the pudding? Sorry, I can buy you one after school?” Lucas hurried to suggest but Max just furrowed her brow in confusion.

“What? No, that's fine I don't care,” she told him, looking over her shoulder again before continuing, her voice lower: 

“I just thought maybe it was what I said about Homecoming on Wednesday or…"

“Oh, no, it's not that. I don't - I don't even remember what you said," Lucas explained, putting his hands in his pockets, shrugging nonchalant. It was a total lie, of course he remembered how she’d said that Homecoming was a stupid waste of money and time she could care less about. And how that had felt like a punch to the gut.

“Okay,” Max said, visibly relieved, unfolding her arms. But there still seemed to be something on her mind as she quickly glanced back at him. 

“But umm… I’m not saying no to you buying me that chocolate pudding. Maybe we could... hang out this weekend?” Max suggested, twisting her hands together and looking up at him. Lucas looked back down at her, and he wanted to say yes. Of course he did, but that nagging part of his brain had woken up thanks to Mike’s mentioning of Dustin’s Oath, and it was harder to ignore it now. But he couldn’t help it, not when she was looking at him like that, her eyes all hopeful and bright.

“Okay, sure,” Lucas nodded quickly. 

“Great, I’ll call you tomorrow then,” Max said, giving him a smile that was a mix of shy and excited before turning around and joining the crowd of students hurrying to class. Lucas was left standing there next to the vending machine, knowing that he should feel guilty about still doing this, but his excitement of getting to see her that weekend, to hang out with her for real, was making that thought easy to ignore.

After a phone call - a brief one that Lucas spent worrying that Erica was gonna pick up the phone and eavesdrop - it was decided that Lucas would meet Max at the arcade and then they’d go to rent a movie from Family Video to watch. Those were both places they went to all the time with the rest of their friends, so if anyone saw them there, it wouldn’t be suspicious. That wasn’t explicitly the reason they’d chosen those places to hang out at, neither of them said it out loud, but Lucas still got it without them saying it. They couldn't just go out in public together like that. As much as he liked to imagine otherwise when they were behind closed doors, they were not dating and they never could be. 

Regardless, it was still the first time they had hung out just the two of them, somewhere that wasn’t Max’s house or a random supply shed at camp. And Lucas couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement course through him as he walked out the front door into the sunny early October air. He was about to get into his car when he heard a honk from the road and turned around to look towards the sound. 

"Hi Lucas!" El yelled out in a cheery tone, having cranked down the passenger side window of Mike's car, Mike peering from behind her. 

"Oh, hi guys!" Lucas replied, lifting his hand in a wave. 

"Where are you headed?" Mike asked, El leaning back in her seat so he could see Lucas better. 

"Oh, I umm…" Lucas started to stammer. Should he lie and come up with an excuse, or tell them the truth? He was supposed to meet up with Max at the arcade in ten minutes, there wasn't a lot of time to deal with this. Deciding to go with an option halfway between the truth and a lie, he leaned against the side of his car, trying to seem as casual as possible as he said:

"I'm just gonna go to the arcade for a bit. Maybe rent a movie, I don't know."

"We're going to the video store too! Want to come with us?" El suggested happily, turning to look from Lucas to Mike who nodded along. 

"Yeah, we still need to swing by El's to get some movies we need to return but if you don't mind that you can get a ride with us? Dustin started back at work this week and he said they've got Rambo 3, we could rent it and watch it later?" 

Lucas gulped, trying to figure out what to say. He had thought about renting the new Rambo movie, but he'd thought he'd watch it with Max. But if he said he didn't want to go with Mike and El they'd be suspicious for sure. Especially if they were going to Family Video too - there was no way Lucas could get there before them to tell Max about the change of plan. He was also running out of time, which is why he conjured up a confident smile and said:

"Yeah, sure, why not!" 

The pit-stop at El's house took longer than planned as she couldn't find one of the tapes, Mike and Lucas both having to get out the car and helping her look for it, Mike finally finding it in the vcr player. Will helped them look for the movie too and as they were leaving Mike invited him along. As all four of them piled into the car again, Lucas looked down at his watch, seeing he was ten minutes late already. Shit. As they got to the shared parking lot of the arcade and the video store, Mike had barely stopped the car when Lucas already opened the door and jumped out. 

"Woah, where are you going?" Will asked from the seat next to him, but Lucas just waved his hand, mumbling something about needing to go get something real quick as he ran into the arcade. Having burst in through the doors, he stopped in the doorway, looking over the busy arcade with its blinking lights and its cheery jingles and 8-bit sound effects. There were groups of kids crowded around games, parents holding up their little kids up to reach the controls, teens hanging out around the skee-ball table, eating chips and drinking from huge cups of soda. And finally Lucas's eyes found Max, standing in front of the Dig Dug console at the other end of the room. Of course she was there, she'd been the unrivaled champion of that game since it got installed at the Palace Arcade back in 84. Lucas had spent plenty of time watching and cheering her on as she beat her own records over and over again, supplying her with quarters from his piggy bank and giving her victory high fives. This time it didn't look like she was in the mood for a high five. Her gaze on the screen was intense, but there was clear frustration in the way she worked the game controls, there was something off. And Lucas felt like crap, knowing it was probably because of him being so late. 

"Shit!" Max exclaimed loudly, slamming her palms down on the console and kicking its side with her sneakered foot. That garnered shushes and sharp looks from some adults nearby and Max turned to them to apologize. As she did she finally spotted Lucas, who was still standing awkwardly in the doorway. There was clear hurt in her eyes before her expression hardened, her mouth opening to say something, but before she had the chance to, Lucas heard the door open behind him and a hand clapped down on his shoulder. 

"Hey, why did you run off? I thought we were going to return El's tapes first?" Mike asked, confused and Lucas turned from Max to him. 

"Sorry, I just…" he started, but his brain was really struggling to come up with an excuse right now. But turned out it wasn't needed. 

"Hi guys! Didn't know you were coming here too!" Max called out to them, making her way across the carpeted floor to them. Mike turned his head to look from Lucas to her. 

"Oh, hey," he greeted her back, as confused as ever. Max stopped a couple steps from them, smiling politely at Mike and then at Lucas, the look in her eye shifting just slightly, making him realize that he was supposed to be surprised to see her too. 

"Hi Max. I didn’t know you’d be here too," he spoke up, trying to come across as cool and casual in front of Mike. 

"Oh it was just a spontaneous thing. I was bored so I just decided to head out for a bit," Max explained. 

"What about you? Got a whole guys' day planned out?" she added, crossing her arms across her chest, her brows rising. Lucas gulped. He wanted to talk to her alone, assure her that he hadn't lied yesterday, this wasn't planned, he really had wanted to spend time with her today. But with Mike right there he couldn't say any of that. 

"No, me and El were coming to the video store and picked up Lucas and Will on the way. Want to come with? We're thinking of renting Rambo 3 if they have it," Mike explained. 

"Count me in, I’ve been wanting to watch that," Max said, keeping her gaze strictly on Mike as she spoke and when they walked out of the arcade, Lucas made sure to keep a distance between him and her. She was mad at him, he got it. He really needed to get her alone to talk to her and explain. 

But there was no chance of that happening when they walked into Family Video. 

"Hi guys!" Dustin greeted them excitedly from behind the counter. 

"I was just talking with El and Will, and my shift is over in an hour if we want to make that Rambo night a thing?" he continued, leaning on the worn-down counter and smiling excitedly. 

"Yeah, we can go to our house and watch the movie there?" Will explained, turning to them.

“Yeah sure! I’m down, what about you guys?” Mike asked, looking over at Lucas and Max.

“Oh, hi Max!” Dustin greeted her, surprised to see her walk in. 

“Hey,” she replied with a nod, shoving her hands in her jean’s pockets.

“I thought you said you were busy today and couldn’t hang out?” El asked her, a little confused, getting the vhs tapes out of her bag. Lucas could feel Max’s gaze flicker over to him for a second before she looked back at El and said:

“Yeah, but looks like there was a chance of plans I guess.” Ouch.

“Well then you can join us for movie night!” El said excitedly, picking up the Rambo 3 vhs and handing it over to Max. She took the tape and looked over its cover with its beefy main character and explosions a-plenty.

“Sure, why not. It’s not like I had any other plans,” she said with a shrug and it took everything in Lucas not to open his mouth and apologize to her. But he couldn’t, not here in the middle of the busy video store, with all their friends there. 

“Great! Movie night it is then!” Dustin announced excitedly, thankfully blissfully unaware of the tension between Lucas and Max, starting to ring up the tapes. 

The tension didn’t go anywhere during the movie night at the Byers-Hopper house, and Lucas could only hope that the rest of their friends were too focused on the action of the movie to notice something was off. Earlier in the video store and in the car Max had clearly been mad at him, shooting him icy glances when their friends weren’t looking. But now as they sat watching the movie, sitting on opposite ends of the couch, Lucas had started to wonder if it was something else going on with her too. She’d been uncharacteristically quiet, only occasionally making a snarky comment about the movie, spending most of the time just blankly looking at the screen or seeming like she was zoning out. Lucas had tried to get her alone to talk to her, but every time there was someone else there, be it their friends, or Will’s mom, popping into the kitchen when he had gotten Max there under the excuse of making more popcorn. 

“Oh, sorry to interrupt you two, just getting some coffee,” Joyce said as she walked in, just as Lucas was about to talk to Max, thinking the whir of the microwave would hide his voice. 

“No worries Mrs. Byers,” Max assured her with a polite smile. 

“Yeah, we’re just waiting around,” Lucas echoed with a nod. Joyce smiled back at them, pouring herself a cup of coffee out of the coffee maker. 

“If you guys want some, feel free,” she pointed out, lifting the half-filled pot of coffee in her hand. Both of them shook their heads identically, and Joyce hummed in a “that’s your loss then” and set down the pot. Turning around to them, she asked politely:

“Well, what’s new with you two, haven’t seen you around in a while. Senior year keeping you busy?”

“Yeah umm…” Lucas started, floundering with his words. What _wasn’t_ new with them?

“It sure is. I have soccer practice all the time, and the class workload is as insane as ever,” Max hurried to explain, seeming perfectly confident and casual chatting to Joyce. 

“Oh I bet. Are you getting all ready for your college applications? I’ve been trying to get Will to tell me where he’s applying but he hasn’t decided yet it seems. What about you two?” Joyce asked, looking between the two of them. At that Lucas sensed Max freeze up beside him, biting down on her lip. He knew she was still very unsure about the whole college thing. Maybe he should ask her if she wanted to talk about it, if she needed help figuring it out. Well, when she wasn’t mad at him, that is. Meanwhile he could still help her out by giving her time to think of her answer. 

“Well Princeton is my number one pick, but I’m applying to Northwestern and Purdue too,” Lucas answered, listing out his college picks like he had many times at family gatherings.

“Though, my mom wants me to also apply to Howard because that’s where she went, so I guess I’ll send an application there too,” he added with a shrug, hoping he was talking enough for two so that Max didn’t need to if she didn’t want to. 

“I see,” Joyce replied, nodding and taking a sip of coffee. 

“Seems like you’ve got it all planned out. Though, that could be expected, you’ve always been such a smart and determined young man,” she added with a smile and Lucas looked down, embarrassed.

“Right? I wish I got it all planned out like he does, I still haven’t picked where I want to apply,” Max spoke up from beside him and Lucas glanced over at her from the corner of his eye, he was almost sure she was turning to look at him too, but then the microwave dinged loudly. 

“Oh, looks like your popcorn is ready! I won’t hold you from your movie night any longer then. It was nice talking to you, hope to see you around here again soon,” Joyce wished them with a kind smile and then hurried out the kitchen with her coffee. 

With her gone, the two of them stood silently for a second before Max turned to the microwave to get the popcorn. She picked up the steaming paper bag, holding it with the tips of her fingers and Lucas brought over the empty bowl for her to pour the popcorn into. They worked silently over the kitchen counter, Lucas mumbling out a quick sorry as his arm bumped into hers in the process. Should he talk to her now?

“Thanks for that,” Max quietly said, throwing Lucas off his thoughts.

“Huh?”

“For giving me a second to think about my answer about the college stuff. I mean, it wasn’t enough time for me to figure it out, but that’s on me, not you,” Max explained, crumbling up the empty paper bag and throwing it in the trash. 

“Oh, of course. I know you still need some time to think about that stuff, and I have a rehearsed answer ready, so it was all cool,” Lucas said. Max nodded, picking up the bowl of popcorn. Lucas figured it was now or never:

“Hey, I’m…”

“What’s taking you guys so long, you’re missing the whole action sequence!” Dustin yelled out from the living room just then and they both turned towards the sound.

“Yeah yeah, we’re ready!” Max yelled out to him, turning to walk out the kitchen. Then she paused for just a second, turning to look back at Lucas and quickly saying to him in a hushed tone:

“You can walk me home after this, let’s talk then.”

And then she walked into the living room, demanding to know everything that had happened in the last five minutes of the movie.

The movie finished an hour later, and as Mike stayed to hang out with El and Will, and Dustin was in a hurry to get home, Max and Lucas were the only ones walking home. Dustin had offered to give them a ride on his car, but they’d told him they were fine, and Lucas could only hope Dustin didn’t see anything by it. 

The fall evening was darkening around them as they walked towards Max’s house, not having spoken since they left Will and El’s. Turning onto Old Cherry Road, Lucas couldn’t hold his words in anymore

"Hey, I'm so sorry for today," he started, turning to Max, his words quick, slightly frantic as he continued:

"I honestly had no idea this all would happen. I was leaving to come meet you at the arcade when Mike and El saw me and said they were going to the video store and asked me to come along. They would've been super suspicious if I'd said no and then showed up there with you so I…"

"I get it, don't worry. You had to play along, they would've caught on otherwise. It’s fine," Max assured him, but by the way she avoided his gaze and dragged her feet as she walked, Lucas could tell it was not really fine.

"I just… I don't know why I even thought this would be a good idea in the first place," she said, sounding frustrated and defeated. 

"No one can know about this, so why would it be possible for us to hang out in a public place? It was a dumb idea from the start, I don't know why I even suggested it," she added, looking down at the street and shrugging, letting out a self-deprecating laugh. 

Lucas was confused. He figured that she had just been mad at him for bailing on her. He’d thought that after he’d apologized, she’d be fine with it. That he’d say he was sorry and they would go back to normal again. Or, back to whatever this new normal was. 

"Well in any case, I'm still sorry today didn't go like we planned. Maybe we could try again next weekend?” Lucas suggested, turning to look at Max walking next to him. She pursed her lips together, shaking her head.

“No, I don’t think we should. You saw how today went, why would next week be any different?”

“But… you were the one who wanted to go out and hang out in the first place?” Lucas asked, confused. 

“Yeah, but I was an idiot to think it would be a good idea. We both know what this is, we both agreed to keep this a secret because no one can find out about this. We’re not dating or anything, so we should just stop pretending that could be possible.”

Lucas wanted to speak up and tell her that no, he actually didn’t really know what _this_ was anymore. That he wasn’t sure if he understood where she was coming from, and he thought they really needed to talk things through again, as much as she hated doing that. But he didn’t have time to say any of that, as Max kicked a pebble on the street ahead of her and spoke again:

“No need to make this a whole complicated, serious thing. We both know it's not." Lucas knew he was supposed to agree with her, that it was what they had agreed on back at camp, but the coldness in her tone really felt like a punch to the chest. With her wanting to hang out outside their Wednesdays he'd thought that maybe… But it seemed like he'd thought wrong. For her this was - he was - just a temporary thing to pass her time, to ease her boredom for the last months she had to spend in this small town before she could leave it for bigger better things. Fine then. 

"Oh shit, my parents are home!" Max suddenly hissed, stopping dead in her tracks, panicked, and before Lucas could even blink, she was shoving him aside and behind the neighbor's fence to keep him out of sight of the lit-up windows of her house. 

"Ow!" he yelped, his shoulder colliding painfully against the old fence. 

"Sorry but you have to go home. Take the shortcut through the Foster’s yard or something so you don't have to cross in front of my house," Max explained quickly, keeping watch of the house, trying to see if they'd been spotted. And before Lucas could say anything, she glanced at him quickly, said a quick "bye, see you Monday" and then walked off. And he was left covering against a fence on a stranger's yard in the darkening fall night, figuring how he’d ended up here. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! Three more chapters left and we're starting to get to the main conflict and all, I'm excited for you to read it! The last chapters are a little longer and need more editing than the first half of the story, so bear with me as I work to get them ready to be posted. But anyways, thank you for reading and I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments!


	6. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With their non-date that didn't go as planned, and the conversation following it that had Max saying that it was useless for her and Lucas to pretend that they could become something more, Lucas finds himself mad and frustrated by it all. Following well-intentioned advice from Mike he starts a chain of events that begins to unravel a tangle of lies.

“Hey, you okay?” 

Lucas turned to look at Mike who was sitting by the computer next to him, leaning to speak to him in a hushed tone in the quiet classroom, the class busy with a coding exercise. 

“What, why?” Lucas answered, furrowing his brow. He was fine. Just great!

“Cause you’re gonna break that keyboard, clacking on it that hard,” Mike explained, pointing at the keyboard in front of Lucas. 

“Oh,” he voiced.

Mike was right. He hadn’t really focused on the task at hand that much. The only thing he could focus on was the thoughts going around in a loop in his brain, replaying his conversation with Max on Saturday. How she’d first suggested they should hang out but then done a total 180 turn, saying that it was useless for them to even pretend to be anything more than just friends that just happened to make out sometimes in secret. And then she’d literally shoved him away. At school today she had pretty much treated him like air, ever since first passing him in the hallway before Chem. In English Lit she hadn’t turned in her seat to look back once, and then at lunch she had scarfed down her food before rushing off, saying it was for soccer practice. Now in the quiet AV class Lucas had had plenty of time to think about all of it, trying to wrap his brain around all her mixed signals and changes in mood. It was all bullshit! Before this summer things between them had been great, and yeah he had had that tiny crush on her during Freshman year because of that one stupid game of spin the bottle, but he had been keeping his word and ignored it like a good friend should. But then she’d kissed him and he had gone along with it and now it had all gone to shit!

“Yeah, just like that, let’s just…” Mike started again, pulling away Lucas’s hands from where they were gripping tightly onto the edges of the keyboard, the hard plastic starting to creak under his grip. 

“Let’s just calm down,” Mike added, looking around the room but no one was paying attention to them, their teacher Mr. Moore having gone off to get coffee five minutes ago.

“What’s up with you? You’ve been acting weird for days now?” Mike asked, sounding concerned. Lucas sighed, debating if he had had enough of this and if he should just come clean and tell Mike what was going on. Maybe he’d have some advice on how to handle this. But as much as Max was annoying him right now, he had still promised her he wouldn’t tell anyone about them. 

“It’s just…” Lucas started, figuring he’d go with the half-truth again.

“Max and I had an argument. And now I’m pissed off at her.”

“I figured it was something like that,” Mike said, nodding.

“Was it about that last chocolate pudding at lunch? I saw you didn’t give it to her.”

“No it’s not that. Just… something just as dumb,” Lucas said. 

“Dude, I get it. Even if you’re best friends with someone, it doesn’t mean that you can’t be annoyed by them.”

“Are you saying I annoy you, Wheeler?” Lucas joked, lifting his eyebrows at him. 

“Yeah, sometimes. And that’s totally normal. I’m just saying… you were both stuck with each other for three weeks straight at camp, maybe you need a break from each other.”

“You know, “see other people”,” Mike added with a joking tone but Lucas instinctively hurried to say:

“We’re not dating.”

“Yeah I know, of course not. Just messing with you, sheesh,” Mike said, lifting his hands up. Lucas sighed, turning his head up to look at the ceiling of the classroom. Maybe Mike had a point.

“I guess you’re right. I need to think about something else,” Lucas finally said.

“Exactly,” Mike agreed, just as the teacher walked back into the classroom. So they dropped the subject, continuing on with the programming exercise. With ten minutes of class left, Mr. Moore switched the topic from the regular class work to the Homecoming preparations. Lucas groaned inwardly, slumping in his chair as he listened as the teacher talked about the sound rigging that needed to be done for the dance. Stupid Homecoming. 

“So we need four or five people to set up the sound system after school on Friday, and then a couple of you to be on standby during the dance in case of any mishaps or technical difficulties,” the teacher explained, sounding a little bored. These were all routine tasks by now, as the class was full of Seniors; they’d worked on multiple assemblies, events and dances by now. So Lucas wasn’t surprised to hear annoyed sighs and groans from around the classroom. Running the audio equipment was easy but no one wanted to spend their last Homecoming taking care of it. 

“So no volunteers then, I take it?” Mr. Moore asked, picking up the attendance list to assign the volunteers. There were a couple of mumbles from around the classroom as some students volunteered for the job, but they still weren’t enough. So the teacher ran a pen along the list, and the whole room waited with dread to hear whose names were going to be called. 

“Elliot you still haven’t handed in that one assignment so you’re up, and then… well you did a great job working the audio for the musical this spring Garrett, so I trust you to do a good job,” the teacher listed and there were annoyed sighs from the boys in question. 

“And lastly...Mike W, you know your way around that setup, right?”

Lucas turned to Mike to see him sitting up in surprise, his look one of panic. 

“Well I mean, yeah, but…” he blubbered and Lucas sighed. Mike did know how to work the audio but he also had a girlfriend he’d probably much rather spend the dance with. 

“I’ll do it Mr. Moore,” Lucas said, raising his hand begrudgingly. 

“Alrighty, that’s fine with me,” the teacher said, going to write his name down and Mike turned to look at Lucas with raised brows.

“What? It’s not like I was looking forward to Homecoming anyway,” Lucas explained with a shrug. 

“Thanks, I’ll owe you one,” Mike replied, sounding relieved.

“I’ll remember that,” Lucas pointed out quickly before Mr. Moore started to speak again, asking the six guys in charge of the audio setup to stay after class. 

When the bell rang, Lucas waved Mike bye as he rushed out the class, and stayed behind himself, joining the others who were gathering at the teacher’s desk as Mr. Moore started to give a bored run-down of the tasks that needed to be done. Standing there, Lucas saw from the corner of his eye as someone entered the classroom from the second door in the back of the room. It was the AV classroom, but it was also the school’s computer room, and it wasn’t uncommon to see people coming and going, coming to do a quick task for a class on a computer or to print something out. This time the person was Meg Parsons, rushing to the copier. She looked hurried, pushing the buttons of the copy machine, making it whir to life and start its usual loud noise as it warmed up. She lifted up the lid of the copier, placing a piece of paper inside to copy and as she set the lid down, she caught Lucas’s eye across the room, giving him a friendly smile. 

“Okay so Josh, Garrett, Lucas and Dale are doing the prep and then Elliot and Charlie are gonna be in stan-by, and then everyone’s cleaning up after. All clear?” 

Lucas focused back on what Mr. Moore was saying, and nodded, giving a “yes” to his question and then the group dispersed, hurrying to get to their next class. Lucas had Study Hall next so he wasn’t in a hurry, throwing his backpack on, turning to the door. But then he heard the shrill beeping of the copier from the back of the room, knowing that it had ran out of paper.

“Umm, Mr. Moore? Could you help with the copy machine, it looks like something’s wrong with it?” Meg asked, sounding confused and Mr. Moore sighed, bored. He’d helped students with the copier hundreds of times and would probably much rather go to the teacher’s lounge to get more coffee.

“It’s just the paper again, I can handle it,” Lucas found himself saying before he could think twice about it and the teacher looked relieved, grabbing his suitcase and quickly leaving the room. Lucas turned towards the back of the room, seeing Meg pulling open the paper compartment of the copier, her brow furrowed in confusion.

“It looks like there’s paper here…” she muttered, peering inside the machine. 

“Maybe you have to change the paper input settings. It has problems with that all the time,” Lucas said, walking up to the machine.

“Alright then, it’s all yours,” Meg said with a shrug, extending her hand out to the copier, taking a step back. Lucas dropped his backpack on an empty desk and went to click through the settings. He’d guessed right; the machine was refusing to take in the paper from the second paper compartment now that the primary one was empty. Lucas realized he’d said that out loud as Meg hummed from beside him, folding her arms across her chest. 

“Yeah, I was _just_ about to say the same thing,” she said with a laugh. Lucas couldn’t help but smile a little too, finished changing the settings and taking a step back as the machine whirred back to life again.

“Great, thank you!” Meg said, relieved as the first copies came out of the machine.

“What are you copying?” Lucas asked, only a second later realizing that it might’ve been an intrusive question. After working together at camp him and Meg were on friendly terms but they still weren’t that close. Meg didn’t seem to mind though, picking up the first sheet of paper. 

“Oh nothing much, just a list of stuff we still need to do for Homecoming prep,” she explained, showing him the copy of the handwritten bullet-pointed list. 

“Oh yeah, you’re in charge of the events, right? You must be busy this week,” Lucas commented and Meg nodded, eyeing the long list of tasks on the piece of paper. 

“I sure am. I like organizing stuff, and I’m good at it but yeah, it’s a lot of work,” she admitted, picking up more papers from the copier tray.

“And with all the setting up, I haven’t even had the time to make my own plans for Friday! I have a dress but that’s about it,” she said with a laugh, shaking her head. For a second Lucas wondered why she was bringing it up with him, but then she continued, her tone casual:

“What about you?”

“Well umm,” Lucas started.

“I just got assigned audio setup duty so seems like that’s my plan for the night.”

“A fun night for you too then,” Meg joked, shooting a smile his way as she picked up another paper. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Lucas agreed, looking down. For some reason it felt weird having her smile at him like that.

They stood in silence for a second, the classroom quiet apart from the steady whirr and groan of the copier. Lucas was just about to wish Meg good luck with the organizing and leave the classroom, when she suddenly spoke up:

“You know,” she started, brushing her dark curly hair behind her ear. 

“I’ll be busy the whole day before Homecoming, I don’t want to ask anyone as my date only to have them waiting around for me unfairly,” she continued and Lucas shrugged. Made sense but why was she talking to him about it?

“And if you’re gonna be busy with audio stuff too, then what if we um, went together?”

“Huh?”  
“I mean, there wouldn’t be any of the extra stuff, no limos or corsages or dinners and matching outfits, I don’t have time for that. But…” Meg explained, continuing:

“When everything is set up and I’m not running around anywhere, maybe we could hang out, get a dance in.”

“Umm…” Lucas voiced, still not quite getting what she meant. 

“And then there’s also the after party at Kevin’s if you want to come with me after clean up? You can invite your friends too if you want?” Meg added, smiling at him as she took the last of the copies from the machine.

“I uh…” Lucas faltered. This had come totally out of the blue. And his first instinct was to politely decline, he wasn’t really interested in being more than her casual friend. But then he remembered Mike’s words from ten minutes ago. _“You need a break from her… to see other people.”_ And then he remembered the irritated look on Max’s face when they’d talked about Homecoming. She’d said she didn’t care about it at all, so why would he had to care about what she thought about his plans for the dance. Maybe this was good, an opportunity to think about something else, to have a fun, normal night out. And Meg was nice, and friendly and pretty popular too, probably his only chance to get to go to the official after party. So why not? He knew why not, but he tried to silence the thought, instead smiling confidently as he spoke.

“Yeah, sure, works for me.”

“Okay great! I have to run to class now but I’ll find you later in the week, to figure out the details,” Meg spoke quickly, gathering the rest of the papers in her hands and starting to head backwards towards the door.

“Okay, sure. Have a good class,” Lucas wished her.

“Thanks, you too. See you later!” Meg replied with a smile and a wave of her hand.  
“See you,” Lucas said, answering her wave and then after one more bright smile she slipped out the door.

* * *

**Dustin's POV**

Shop class was pretty great. Especially when they were working on projects involving mechanics and batteries and electrical currents and circuit boards. The teacher, Mr. Lester, had assured the class at the start of the semester that they would get to those later on. But for now, they were just working on making wooden shelves. Which was cool too, because the teacher gave the class a lot of time to work independently, and if they were done with the day’s work, they could leave early. Which was great for the last class of the day. 

Dustin was pretty happy with how his shelf was turning out, he’d measured the shelves carefully to fit cassettes, books and video game cartridges, and right now he was sanding it before giving it a coat of paint. They were onto the last twenty minutes of the class and as per usual, everyone was working on their own projects, talking and chatting amongst themselves, the teacher minding his own business in his office at the end of the workshop. Dustin shared the workbench with Tommy McClain, a Junior, who he knew from Drama club and from camp. Tommy had the same curly hair that he had, so the kids at camp would always spend the first days asking if they were related. Not this summer, obviously, cause Dustin had had to sit the camp out with his sprained ankle. But Tommy had filled him in on all the events and gossip at camp, as had Lucas and Max too, obviously. 

Dustin turned to look over where Max was at the next workbench over, working on spreading varnish on her shelf with a concentrated look on her face. She’d picked shop class for the past two semesters now and Dustin was happy about it since sharing the class gave him a good opportunity to spark up a conversation with her when they were all hanging out or in class. Like how he’d made a joke referencing something Mr. Lester had said at their movie night that past weekend. 

It wasn’t like Dustin found it hard to talk to Max. It was no way near as difficult now that it had been back when they were in eight grade, when he’d suddenly developed a major crush on her over Spring Break. He’d made a total fool of himself after that, finding a lizard (a male six-lined racerunner to be exact) on his backyard and bringing it to school the next day to show her because he thought she’d be impressed. She wasn’t. 

Well anyway, the point is that he wasn’t making a fool out of himself in front of her anymore. He was playing it cool, treating her the same way as the rest of his friends. But at the same time, if anything would suddenly happen between them - she had been single since she dumped Ricky Vance last year - he wouldn’t complain. But he was letting things flow on their own weight, he wasn’t making it a big deal. But he still couldn’t help but pay attention to her and try to come up with fun jokes to make her laugh. Like any good friend would.

“So how would you rate our chances?” Tommy asked and Dustin realized he had been speaking this whole time.

“Huh?” he voiced, turning to look at his classmate at the other end of the workbench. 

“Our chances of getting invited? To Kevin’s Homecoming after party?” Tommy explained.

“He’s having the party this year? I thought those were usually at Corey’s?” Dustin commented, returning to sanding the shelf.

“No, it’s at Kevin’s this year. I heard Maddie talk about it in Calc. She was saying how that’s going to be their first party as an official couple,” Tommy explained, always the one to hear all the latest news and gossip. He wasn’t super popular, but he was involved in a lot of clubs and activities at school, friendly to people, easy to talk to and he always kept his eyes and ears open, being endlessly curious. 

“Wait, Maddie and Kevin are together?” Dustin asked, furrowing his brow in confusion. 

“Since when?”

“Oh right, you weren’t at camp. They didn’t say anything the whole time but they were being pretty obvious. Sneaking off all the time, sending each other gross looks, thinking we wouldn’t catch on,” Tommy explained, rolling his eyes. 

“Who are we talking about?” Dustin and Tommy both turned to see Max had walked up to their workstation, holding a tub of varnish in her hands. Was Dustin imagining it or did she seem tense, her voice more high-pitched than usual.

“Maddie and Kevin are dating now I guess? Did you know that, didn’t Maddie run the cabin with you this summer?” Dustin explained and Max exhaled, her tight grip on the metal canister in her hands loosening. But then she furrowed her brow in thought.

“Yeah but I had no idea, she didn’t tell me,” she said, clearly trying to think back to any clues she’d missed at camp.

“Well in any case,” Tommy said, turning to focus on his project. 

“They’re throwing the official Homecoming after party on Friday, and I doubt any of us will be invited.”

“Speak for yourselves dweebs, you don’t know if I became best buds with Kevin at camp and secured myself an invite,” Max pointed out, flashing them a grin before walking away towards the supply shelves in the corner of the room. 

“And here I thought you had standards,” Dustin called out after her and she just waved her hand back at him as she continued walking. Dustin huffed, focusing back on the sanding. 

“Speaking of Homecoming though,” he started after a while, turning around the shelf on the workbench, starting to work on another siding.

“What are your thoughts on that whole Jennifer and Dylan drama?” he asked, thinking back to Drama class last period when Dylan had used his three-minute monologue to ask Jennifer to Homecoming and she’d had to tell him that someone else had already asked her. 

“Well it’s his fault for waiting until three days before to ask her,” Tommy replied, shrugging.

“Oh and who are you to say? With all the dates you’ve got lined up?” Dustin commented with a snort.

“What about you?” Tommy shot back.

“Fair,” Dustin admitted. He hadn’t paid a thought to finding a date for the dance, he was just looking forward to them all going together, to the four of them hanging out in the gym all dressed up, eating the snacks and goofing around, giving Mike and El room to do their coupley thing. 

“But hey, we can always ask Meg. You know, as a last resort,” Dustin continued, fully meaning it as a joke. Meg Parsons was way out of both of their leagues and they knew it. But she was in Drama with them and yesterday she’d mentioned how she had been so busy with organizing the dance that she didn’t have a date. 

“Wait, didn’t you hear?” Tommy asked, surprised, leaning toward him from across the workbench. By the gleam in his eye Dustin could tell he had another piece of gossip to share. 

“Hear what?” Dustin asked, not paying much attention. It wasn’t a surprise Meg had found a date.

“She’s going with Lucas!”

“What?!” Dustin asked loudly, whipping his head up to look at Tommy, and his surprised words were instantly echoed by Max who was back passing their workstation again. 

“Yeah, didn’t he tell you guys?” Tommy asked, looking between the both of them. Dustin looked over to Max, and she looked at him as well, seeming just as blindsided as he felt.

“No?” Dustin said, waiting for Tommy to explain what was going on. Lucas? Asking Meg Parsons to Homecoming? Without telling him? Without telling any of them?

“Well that’s what I heard at least, that he asked her sometime after Drama class yesterday,” Tommy explained, clearly enjoying having info neither of them did. Dustin looked over at Max again, and noticed she looked hurt. Which he understood well, it wasn’t like Lucas to keep secrets like this. But she looked really, really hurt by this for some reason.

“You’re messing with us. He would’ve told m- us,” Max pointed out, crossing her arms over her chest. Tommy just shrugged, focusing back on his project.

“I don’t know for sure. But it looks like he’s got a ticket to the after party, maybe you could cozy up to _him_ for one, Max.”

“Screw you,” Max spit out, giving him the finger before she marched over to her table, beginning to aggressively clean her workstation. And Dustin got that she was annoyed at Lucas for not telling them, but wasn’t she taking this a little far? Before he could go over and ask her about it, she’d flung her backpack over her shoulder, coming to their table.

“Tell Mr. Lester that I’m done for today, I gotta go,” she quickly told him before marching out the door with a furious look in her eyes. 

“Okay…” Dustin voiced, confused, watching her leave. 

“What was that all about?” he wondered, turning back to look at Tommy across the workbench. He was straining his neck, peering out the door to see if Max was gone, and after a couple seconds he quickly turned to look at Dustin again.

“So they haven’t told you?” 

“What are you talking about?” Dustin asked, starting to get frustrated. What was going on, why was nobody telling him anything?

“I didn’t want to bring it up with her right there cause I wasn’t sure. Plus I didn’t want her to beat me up,” Tommy started.

“Bring up what?” Dustin asked. 

“They really haven’t told you guys? Some friends you have, Henderson…” Tommy said, lifting his eyebrows and shaking his head. 

“Tommy I swear to god…”

“Let’s just say Maddie and Kevin weren’t the only ones secretly sneaking around at camp.”

His words left Dustin blinking and confused. It made no sense. What did he mean? 

“But I was pretty sure you guys all knew about it, that’s why I didn’t bring it up earlier, it’s none of my business really,” Tommy continued. 

“When I heard that Lucas is taking Meg to Homecoming I figured I’d assumed wrong.”

“Okay wait,” Dustin said, able to form words again.

“You’re saying that Max and Lucas…” 

“Got together at camp? Yeah,” Tommy said point-blank. 

Dustin looked down at the worn-down wood table in front of him, his heartbeat loud in his ears, his brain struggling to catch up with what Tommy had said. It wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. 

“I mean, I didn’t see anything, but it was pretty obvious something was going on. I think we pretty much caught them red-handed once at the locker room,” Tommy continued on, sounding way too casual considering what he was saying. This was earth-chattering, mind-bending… This wasn’t true. No way. Lucas would’ve told them, told him. And he wouldn’t have done it in the first place. They’d made an Oath! 

“Sorry, dude,” Tommy said and Dustin turned to look at him again.

“I honestly thought that you knew. And I mean, I don’t know for sure, you should ask Lucas about it.”

“Oh I definitely will. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding,” Dustin said, trying to play it cool. He was trying to convince himself too, trying to assure himself that it was all a misunderstanding, that Tommy didn’t know what he was talking about, that he had seen an opportunity for gossip and taken it. But while he tried to do that, his mind kept bringing up images of how hurt and mad Max had looked just now and how tense she had seemed when Tommy had mentioned someone sneaking around at camp. And now that he thought about it, he also remembered how Lucas had insisted he could walk Max home on Saturday after their movie night, and how he would never talk about camp in much detail. Dustin looked up at the clock hanging on the wall. There were ten minutes of class left, and after that Lucas was giving him a ride home as per usual. It was the perfect opportunity to ask him about this. To ask him what the hell Tommy was talking about. 

* * *

**Lucas’s POV**

Lucas had spent Study Hall working on an assignment for Honors Chem and having finished it fifteen minutes before the final bell of the day, he figured he’d head out early instead of getting started on something new. The hallways were empty as he made his way across the school to his locker, trying to think of a way to pass the time before the final bell, as he had to wait for Dustin to be done with shop class before he could head home. 

Lucas turned the corner, starting to walk down the hall of the part of the school where most of the elective classes were held. He could hear the jazz band practicing in the basement, and could smell the sawdust from the shop class. He’d just made a right at the end of the hall, heading towards where his locker was, when he heard the sound of a door opening behind him in the hallway. Seemed like some other classes were ending a bit earlier too. He continued on, checking his watch to see he still had ten minutes to wait around for Dustin, vaguely aware of the footsteps in the hallway behind him. Lucas kept on walking, stretching his neck after over an hour of hunching over his Chem assignment. Maybe he could spend the last ten minutes trying to stretch properly, his mom was always on him about the importance of proper ergonomics…

“Hey, Lucas!”

The voice coming from behind him surprised him, making him jump. Firstly, because of how sudden the voice was, secondly, how loud and assertive it was, and thirdly because he recognized who it belonged to. Lucas whipped his head around to look back and saw Max walking down the hallway towards him. She was mad, unbelievably so. She didn’t frown, or stomp her feet, or ball her hands into fists, but Lucas knew her. Knew her well enough to know that she was fucking pissed. He didn’t know why exactly, but he had a good feeling that it was because of him and realizing that was quickly activating his fight-or-flight response. Or more accurately just his flight-response. 

“Hey,” he replied, trying to sound as neutral and friendly as possible, preparing to face her as her determined steps lead her down the hallway and towards him. 

“We need to talk,” Max said matter-of-fact as she reached him, rage bubbling into her calm words. Lucas gulped.

“Yeah, um, okay, sure,” he said, nodding and before he could say anything else, Max grabbed ahold of his sweatshirt sleeve, pulling him along as she walked back up the hallway, making a right and getting into one of the stairways leading down into the basement where the music classes were. She didn’t say anything the whole time, didn’t turn to look at him, which gave Lucas plenty of time to panic, to try to think of a reason she was pissed at him. Also, hell, why did she get to be mad at him? He was mad at her too but he didn’t show it by dragging her around the school! 

When they’d reached the bottom of the staircase Max let go of his arm, going to the glass door separating the stairwell from the hallway, checking that there was no one there. Lucas had to admit that she’d picked a pretty good spot. Out of the two stairways to the basement, this one was the least used so there wouldn’t probably be anyone here in the next ten minutes at least, and over the continuing brass music coming from the band room, she could chew him out as loudly as she wanted to. 

Having checked the perimeter, Max turned to look at him for the first time since she’d started dragging him along. Her mouth was pressed into a tight, angry line, and her blue eyes were aflame with cold, seething fire. She had her hands on her hips and she was tapping her foot, looking like she was expecting him to say something. And Lucas was so lost.

“What?” he asked, letting his frustration show. Why the hell was she cornering him like this? After ignoring him for three days, after their talk on Saturday when he’d apologized to her and she’d been the one to turn him down?

“What?” she mocked his tone, a mean edge in her voice. 

“That’s all you’ve got?”

“Well yeah, until you tell me what the hell’s going on,” Lucas replied, her anger contagious. 

“Oh I’ll tell you alright! I’ll tell you what Dustin just told me, I’ll tell you word for word if you’d like!” 

Dustin. There was only one thing Dustin could tell Max that would make her this mad. Dustin had told her about their eighth grade Oath. Shit shit shit shit. 

“When did he tell you?” Lucas asked, panic creeping into his tone. Why would Dustin tell Max about the Oath? Back when they’d made it, Dustin had made him and Mike and Will promise that they wouldn’t tell anyone, that had been part of the deal. And the last few years Lucas had just been too embarrassed about the whole thing to explain it to her even if he were allowed to.

“About two minutes ago. So why the hell haven’t you told me before? Don’t you think I should hear it from you, not Dustin?” 

There was clear hurt in Max’s eyes and Lucas understood why, he really did, and he felt like shit. He needed to explain this. 

“I know this is no defense but just know that we made that Oath when we were thirteen and dumb and I get it now that it wasn’t fair to you and - and no one’s mentioned it in years anyway, so I figured that Dustin had forgotten all about it, okay, so…” Lucas rambled in defense, his sentence trailing off as he saw the confused look on Max’s face. 

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her voice more puzzled than mad now.

“The Oath Dustin made the four of us take? Back in eighth grade?”

There was no recognition in Max’s eyes, only further confusion. It felt like the bottom of Lucas’s stomach fell right off. She wasn’t talking about the Oath. Did she even know about it or had he just…

“No… I’m talking about you going to Homecoming with Meg,” Max said, her confusion turning to frustration and anger again. 

Oh she was just talking about that! Lucas felt relief wash over him, and apparently it was visible on his face too, as Max crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze turning from angry to positively venomous. Lucas cleared his throat, his annoyance at her coming back. 

“Oh yeah, well I am,” he said, trying to sound nonchalant and confident.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” 

“Why would I? You were pretty clear when you said you didn’t give a shit about the whole dance, so why would I have to inform you about my plans?” Lucas asked. 

“Especially since we should stop pretending that this is a “complicated, serious thing”,” he added, bringing his hands up to make the air quotes. 

He saw that throwing her own words back at her hurt her, but at least now they hurt her the same way they’d hurt him when she’d said them on Saturday. 

“Don’t you think I would like to give a shit about Homecoming? Don’t you think I would want to…” Max started, her voice loud, but then she paused to take a breath. When she spoke again she sounded more pained and serious than angry. 

“But with things being as they are, I can’t. And you know that. I know you do. So why would you make this even worse by asking Meg as your date?”

“I didn’t ask her. She asked me,” Lucas defended himself.

“We both have to work before Homecoming so she didn’t want to ask someone who expected the whole limo and dinner and pictures thing. To be honest, I don’t think she even meant it as actual dates,” he pointed out.

“Well why didn’t you tell me then? If you thought you were just going as friends, why did you keep it a secret from all of us?” Max pressed on, sounding angry again.

“Oh so _now_ keeping secrets is bad? When you’re the one they’re being kept from?” Lucas shot at her. This was absurd. 

“Don’t you even start! Especially with whatever this secret Oath thing is you’re so scared of me finding out about!” Max replied, her words just as sharp. 

“I know it’s something major if it was even worse than me knowing about this. So care to explain?”

Lucas gulped. He’d really much rather not talk about this. 

“I told you, we made it in eighth grade, it doesn’t matter anymore,” he mumbled.

“Well suit yourself. I can go upstairs and get the answer straight from Dustin then,” Max said, starting to push past him and up the stairs, but he caught her arm.

“No, please don’t,” Lucas said, his words coming out more pleading than he’d intended them to sound.

“I’ll tell you. Just please don’t let him know I did.”

“Spill it,” Max said, folding her arms across her chest again, lifting her eyebrows expectantly. Lucas shifted in place. The anger he had felt earlier talking about Homecoming was all gone now. Because as mad as it had made him to see her getting pissed at him for no reason if she didn’t even care about the dance, it still wasn’t serious. But this? This was. This was something that had the potential of really hurting her, and even if he was mad at her right now, he really didn’t want that. But she deserved to know, and he needed to be the one to tell her, she deserved that too. 

“Remember when we got back from Spring Break, eighth grade?” Lucas slowly started.

“When Dustin let that lizard loose at school because he wanted to seem cool?” Max supplied. 

“Yeah, that,” Lucas replied, continuing:

“Yes he wanted to be cool, but it was also because he wanted to impress you, I think.”

“Why would that be impressive to me?” Max asked, her brow furrowing.

“I have no idea. Like I said, we were in eight grade,” Lucas pointed out.

“But anyway,” he continued.

“He wanted to impress you because he had a crush on you.”

“Yeah, I know, I wasn’t blind. He wasn’t exactly being subtle about it,” Max said, scoffing out a laugh.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Lucas admitted. This had been the easy part. He took a deep breath, diving back into the explanation. It was too late to stop now. 

“That week he called a boys only meeting at Mike’s. And he told us about his crush on you. And he made it this whole huge thing and he made us…”

“He made you what?” Max asked, her voice quieter, and Lucas could tell from her eyes that she was starting to realize what he was talking about. And it broke his heart but he had to tell her.

“He made us swear that we wouldn’t try anything, that we wouldn’t date you, because he’d had the crush first and so he had the priority to have a turn or whatever, I don’t remember, it was all this D&D talk, he made us sign the Oath on a piece of paper and everything…”

“So he called dibs on me?” Max asked, stunned, like she was not believing what she was hearing

“No, Max, that’s not what I’m saying…” Lucas started, taking a step towards her but she took an equal step back.

“That sounds exactly like what you’re saying to me, Lucas!” 

“I’m not some… last piece of pizza the quickest one can call!” she spit out, her loud voice tinted with hurt and fury, echoing in the stairwell. Lucas could faintly register the sound of the school bell ringing.

“I know, of course you’re not! But we were dumb thirteen-year-olds, we had no clue what we were doing, you have to understand that! No one has even mentioned the whole Oath in the past three years, I’m sure Dustin has forgotten all about it. But I did swear it to him, I can’t just break it, he’d be so hurt,” Lucas explained.

“So is that why you’ve always been so eager to keep this thing a secret? Because you’ve respected an old middle school Oath more than me?” Max asked, her voice sounding wounded. Lucas took a breath, taking a small step towards her.

“Max, he’s my best friend, I can’t just break his trust like that, he’d never forgive me,” he explained.

“No that part I get. I really do,” Max said.

“But just tell me this, Lucas,” she continued, taking a step towards him as well, confronting him.

“If your promise to Dustin was so important to you, then why didn’t you tell me no after I kissed you that night in the lake shed? Why didn’t you tell me to cut it out the next day after breakfast? Why did you let me kiss you again, and again, all those times after that? And why did you keep kissing me back if you knew that it was against your Oath?”

Lucas was truly out of words. He had no answer to her. He wished he had one, but he didn’t. He wished he had some rational explanation to why he’d acted like he had, why he’d done what he’d done. He wished he could explain to her how at first he’d done it for the thrill, the excitement, but how it had so quickly turned into something different, something that he couldn’t explain rationally. Something he’d tried his best to reign in these past weeks for the sake of Dustin, but every time he saw her or got to spend time with her, to kiss her, to see her laugh, it was always coming back stronger than ever, he just couldn’t help it. 

But he couldn’t say any of that, his mouth refusing to cooperate with his brain so he just stood there quietly as Max looked him square in the eye, every silent second adding to the heavy look of hurt and betrayal in her eyes.

“Lucas?” both of them snapped awake suddenly, turning to look up at the staircase, seeing Dustin standing there, gripping onto the handrail, stunned and confused. Lucas felt like he was about to throw up. 

“What’s she saying? What are you talking about?” Dustin pressed on, starting to walk down the stairs and Lucas looked away from him and over at Max, opening and closing his mouth, trying to get his words out. To say something to somehow fix the steaming pile of shit that was this situation. She looked back at him, and instead of panic, there was only sadness and quiet disappointment on her face. She let out a breath and then walked past Lucas and towards the stairs. 

“I think this is something you guys should talk through without me. I’ll take myself and the rest of the pizza out of here,” Max spoke, passing Dustin on the stairs.

“The what?” Dustin asked, getting even more confused as he turned to look her way as she took the stairs up two at a time and soon disappeared into the busy hallway. Lucas screwed his eyes shut in frustration, trying to prepare himself for having to explain all this.

Dustin reached the bottom of the stairs as the door slammed closed behind Max and as it did, he turned to look at Lucas.

“Well she’s obviously lying, right? About… you guys kissing or whatever. She’s lying and so is Tommy McClain. They don’t know what they’re talking about,” he started.

“What does Tommy McClain have to do with anything?” Lucas asked, genuine confusion cutting through the panic.

“He said you and Max were hooking up at camp. But that can’t be true. Cause you wouldn’t do that, right?” he continued.

When Lucas still didn’t say anything, he repeated, more pointedly this time:

“Right?”

Strategically speaking, if he wanted to save his own skin, Lucas should’ve just gone along with it, said that Max was lying and that none of the things she had said had really happened. But frankly he was tired of this. Of all the lying and deceit, he wanted to be honest with his friends, without constantly having to worry about them finding out the secret. So he took a breath, squared his shoulders and said:

“She wasn’t lying.”

“But…” Dustin started, looking away in thought, his brows furrowing.

“But that’s not possible. Mike said you guys are fighting right now, and-and you’re taking Meg Parsons to Homecoming, so obviously…” he rambled, his voice trailing off as he turned back to look at Lucas. 

“And you promised me.”

“Dustin, I…” Lucas started but Dustin cut him off, his voice louder now.

“You promised me you wouldn’t do that!” 

“Shit, Dustin! We were thirteen! How was I supposed to know you were still holding onto that dumb Oath?” Lucas yelled, the frustration spilling out.

“Well _sor-ry_ I was dumb and thought I could trust my best friend!” Dustin shot back, throwing his arms up. 

“Was this your master plan all along? Getting Max to replace me at camp so you could romance her?”

“What? No! It was _you_ who came up with the idea of asking her in the first place!” Lucas pointed out.

“How can I know it wasn’t you planting the whole idea in my brain somehow?” Dustin replied loudly.

“Because I didn’t plan this! I didn’t plan for any of this to happen! She just kissed me and… what was I supposed to do?” Lucas yelled back. To be perfectly honest, he could’ve done many things. Rejecting her being the main one. 

“So it’s just “spin the bottle” all over again, huh?” Dustin asked, folding his arms over his chest.

He was talking about New Year’s of 85, when Mike had invited all of them to the annual party his family hosted. They were halfway through Freshman year and El had just started to hang out with them, and it was the first time she was invited to Mike’s house. Mike had had a major crush on her since pretty much the first day of school and it was very obvious that he wanted to kiss her at midnight. But the two of them weren’t getting anywhere, and their shy glances and circling around each other was so painful to watch that around ten thirty Max announced that they were going to play spin the bottle, just to force the two of them to get it over with. And they had, sharing a quick peck followed by grossly sweet smiles. But before that, Max had spun the bottle first. And it had landed on Lucas. She’d rolled her eyes before leaning over the empty Coke bottle on the worn basement carpet and given him a kiss. It had only been a quick one, but Lucas could still remember that her face had felt warm and she had smelled like the Christmas peppermint candies Mrs. Wheeler had set out for them. It was his first kiss, hers too. But it didn’t mean it was a big deal or anything! At least that’s what he’d told Dustin, who had pulled him aside just before they’d gone upstairs for the New Year’s countdown. Lucas had assured him that it had been just a game, that it had been all her, that he wasn’t going to go along with it, he was going to stick to his word and respect the Oath. And he had. He’d stopped himself from stealing glances at Max during the countdown, and he’d tried to think about something else when over the next few weeks his brain would insist on going back to how soft her lips had felt and how he could’ve sworn her cheeks looked flushed as they sat in the circle after the kiss, the game continuing around them. He’d done all that because he was a good friend, and he was going to keep his word. But then this summer had happened. 

Lucas groaned in frustration, trying to think of how to reply. He had to own up to the fact that he was every bit as “guilty” in all this as Max was. She’d been right earlier, he’d had plenty of opportunities to reject her, to tell her he wasn’t interested. But he’d chosen not to take any of them. 

“Listen, Dustin. It really isn’t about you, or the Oath-” he started slowly but Dustin interrupted him.

“How is it not? I think that’s clearly what this is about!”

“It’s not! Because I assumed you weren’t still holding me to that! It’s been three years and you haven’t made any moves on Max, so of course I assumed you were over your crush on her,” Lucas explained, gesturing with his hands in frustration. He sighed, waiting for Dustin to answer, but he stayed quiet, looking down at the floor. 

“You are, right?” Lucas repeated, narrowing his eyes.

“Well, I mean…” Dustin said, shrugging, still averting his gaze. 

“Wait, are you not? But, but you’ve never said anything,” Lucas said, furrowing his brow. 

“Cause I don’t want it to be a big deal!” Dustin shot back, loudly. He continued, lowering his voice, shoving his hands into his pockets with another shrug. 

“And I’m not even… I don’t want her to think that I’m trying too hard, I’m being chill.”

“Well what are you planning to do about it? What’s your plan of asking her out?” Lucas asked, genuinely curious to hear how he thought this would go. 

“I don’t have an exact plan. I was playing it cool, taking my time. Cause I figured there wasn’t a rush, that I wouldn’t have to worry about you snatching her up!” Dustin explained, his voice getting sour.

“I’m not… That’s not…” Lucas replied, bringing up his hands to brush through his hair in irritation.

“Dustin that’s the problem! That’s why I haven’t told Max about the Oath, that’s why she got mad at me just now!” he explained, Max’s words from a moment ago playing in his mind.

“I didn’t “snatch her up”! She’s not the last piece of candy or a front seat of a car that you can just call!” Lucas spoke, his voice loud and frustrated. He paused then, taking a calming breath. 

“She’s a real person, Dustin,” he started again, calmer this time, thinking back to the hurt in Max’s voice, trying to imagine how disappointed she must’ve felt.

“She can make her own decisions, and I am sorry that she hasn’t returned your feelings, I really am, but you can’t blame her or me for it.” 

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you guys about this. We shouldn’t have kept it from you, but the reason we did was that we wanted to avoid a situation just like this. And we planned to cut if out after camp was over but it hasn’t worked out and I don’t know what’s going on between us now and…” Lucas spoke, starting to ramble, realizing how badly he needed to talk all this through with someone. 

“But I don’t think you have to worry about me getting with her anymore. I don’t think she’ll forgive me after today,” Lucas said, the gravity of the situation starting to dawn on him. The door to the stairwell opened next to them, and a group of band kids walked past them towards the stairs, all focused on their own conversation. 

“So, yeah, you don’t need to worry about that anymore. Go ask her to Homecoming or something if you want, maybe she’ll go with you,” Lucas commented, bitterly, turning to follow the other students up the stairs. 

“Lucas…” Dustin called after him, speaking up after being quiet for a while, but Lucas cut him off:

“And could you ask Mike if he can give you a ride home? I need to…” He wasn’t sure what he needed to do exactly. Scream and curse, shut himself in his room, leave town? But what he did know was that he needed to be alone right now.

“Sure, don’t worry about it,” Dustin assured him and Lucas turned to look at him, halfway up the stairs. He wasn’t sure what he saw on Dustin’s face; anger, confusion, regret, empathy? He’d talk to him later to find out. But he needed to figure out his own feelings first. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Hope you enjoyed this new chapter! I had a lot of fun writing this and getting to write the conflict in it. A lot of plot developments and revelations in this chapter, I'd love to hear your reactions and thoughts! The last two chapters are kind of a two-parter, so I think I'll edit them both ready and post them pretty much back to back. Thank you for reading and your patience as I get the last chapters ready and posted!


	7. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the truth now out, both Max and Lucas try to figure out where to go from here. Maybe El and Mike will have some advice to give?

**Max's POV**

Throughout their ten years of friendship, Max and Lucas had had plenty of disagreements. Granted, most of them had just been short arguments or dumb fights kids get themselves into. The first real fight Max remembered them having had been in fifth grade. Their class was going on a field trip to a zoo in Indianapolis, and Max had looked forward to it for weeks. She’d been excited to see the kangaroos and penguins and wolves and tigers, but she had also been looking forward to the trip to the city and back, as Dustin’s mom always packed him a bunch of killer snacks enough for all five of them. She couldn’t wait to get to sit with her friends on the bus, eating snacks and having a great time. But on the frosty and cloudy October morning of the zoo trip, Max’s mom had misplaced the car keys, ruining her plan of getting to the school early to secure good seats on the bus. While her mom had gone through the house, looking everywhere for the keys, Max had stood by the front door, impatiently tapping her foot and gripping onto the straps of her backpack, the ticks of the clock on the wall ringing loud in her ears as minutes passed by. When it had been fifteen minutes until the bus was scheduled to leave, Max had burst out the door without a word to her mom, picking up her bike and starting to bike up the cold and foggy Old Cherry Lane as quick as she could. The morning air had been cold, her fingers freezing as they squeezed around the handlebars as she had rushed through town towards the school, the bike tires skidding a little on the layer of ice that had formed overnight on the pavement in the crossing of Main and Park Street.

When she had finally reached the school parking lot, Ms. Abrams had ushered her into the bus that luckily hadn’t left yet, telling her to go find a seat so they could get going. But as Max had climbed into the bus and started along the aisle, trying to catch her breath after her frantic bike race through town, she had quickly realized that it was completely packed. She’d spotted her friends in the middle back of the bus, Will sitting next to Mike and Dustin and Lucas in the row in front of them. They were all lost in conversation, but Lucas, sitting on the aisle seat, had spotted her. Figuring he wouldn’t hear her in the loud bus, Max just lifted her eyebrows at him, gesturing at his seat. He had looked confused, looking around, not getting what she meant. Max had stood in place restlessly, the frustration building as getting into the warm and stuffy bus had caused sweat to start dripping onto her brow, and the loud chatter from other students combined with her annoyance at Lucas for not saving her a seat, was starting to make her anger boil. But before she could’ve done or said anything, Ms. Abrams had come to tell her to please sit down so they could leave, and since there were no other free seats, Max had been forced to go sit down next to her in the first row. And for the whole trip to the city she had sat in her seat, seething with anger and annoyance at Lucas for not saving a seat for her, as she had heard behind her as her friends laughed and talked without her.

Once at the zoo, the class had started their tour with a chipper tour guide and through it all Max had refused to speak to Lucas, still mad at him. He didn’t seem to get what was going on, trying to start up a conversation with her and pointing out the cool and weird animals they saw. By lunchtime Max had been totally fed up with him, and when all five of them had been sitting at a picnic table by the duck pond, eating their packed lunches, and Lucas had once again asked her “What’s up with you today, you’re acting all weird?”, she’d snapped. Springing up to her feet, she’d grabbed Lucas’s peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and chucked it right into the duck pond. She still remembered his shocked and dumbfounded face as he stared at her, frozen in time for a second before their teacher came over, yelling at her that you weren’t supposed to feed the animals, and landing her in detention.

“Hi Max!” El greeted as she opened the door, shaking Max away from the memory.

“Hi,” Max replied, turning to her friend. When she had called El after school and asked her if she could come over and talk, she’d sounded surprised but invited her over anyway. Max felt bad about it, she hadn’t really spent much time with her friend these past couple months, her focus being on everything that was going on with Lucas. But it didn’t seem like El minded, welcoming Max into the house with a smile, and judging by the way her smile shifted to a more serious expression, she’d quickly realized something was wrong. So she led Max over to her room and Max flopped down on her bed, her back sinking into the soft lavender comforter as she sighed deeply, deciding it was time to come clean. One of the reasons she’d avoided hanging out with El since camp was that she knew if they’d really get to talking, El would be able to read her like she always did, and she’d figure out what was going on. But now since everything had already imploded, Max figured it was no use keeping secrets from El anymore.

So she started talking, telling her everything that had happened since the start of camp, staring up at the ceiling as she recounted every thought, conversation, look. She told El how she’d been reckless and kissed Lucas, and when he’d gone along with it, she’d been surprised but hadn’t thought much about it, figuring they were just going to keep things casual. She explained how he’d blindsided her by asking what they were, and how she’d assured him that their thing was temporary, just for the summer.

“And it seemed like he was okay with it, he wanted to make sure it meant we wouldn’t tell you guys about it. I agreed of course, I knew telling you guys would be super embarrassing, that it would make everything weird. But now after hearing about that childish little pact the guys have going on? That must’ve been why he was so adamant about it,” Max pointed out, getting mad just thinking about it, angrily hugging a pillow to her chest. 

“Can you repeat what he said about it, I still don’t get what that Oath is about,” El said, looking perplexed, sitting on her desk chair. Max huffed, sitting up, ready to explain the ridiculousness again.

“So apparently in eighth grade Dustin called dibs on me and he made all the other boys swear that they wouldn’t try anything. You know, like I was a price cow or something,” Max spoke, cold despise in her voice.

“I’m sorry Max, that sounds gross. But I’m sure they don’t think about it that way anymore, they must know that that’s no way to think about girls. They were just kids when they made it,” El said.

“I know, and if that were the case, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. It would be embarrassing, but I wouldn’t take it seriously,” Max said.

“But Lucas seemed really scared when I brought it up. And yeah, he said that he hadn’t thought about the Oath in years, but clearly he was if he wanted to lie to you guys so that Dustin wouldn’t find out that he’d broken it.”

“But Dustin found out anyway now?” El asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. Max scoffed out a laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“Yeah. Ironically because I was yelling at Lucas about how disrespectful the stupid Oath is, and he overheard me.”

“What did he say?” El asked.

“I didn’t stick around to find out, I left them to deal with it by themselves. It’s about their friendship pact, I was just the shiny thing they’d fought over,” Max answered, picking at a piece of lint on the pillowcase in annoyance. 

El nodded silently, looking contemplative, slowly swiveling her chair from side to side. 

“He did seem a bit distracted in the car, but he didn’t say anything,” El said and Max wrinkled her brow in confusion.

“Who did?”

“Dustin. Mike and I gave him a ride home after school today. He said that Lucas had something to do after school so he came with us, but now I think it was because of all this,” El explained.

“But he didn’t say anything about it, and he didn’t seem mad or anything. Just quiet.”

Max sighed, lowering her back onto the bed again. She wasn’t angry at Dustin. Disappointed for sure, and she didn’t agree with how he’d gone about trying to ask her out. It wasn’t like she didn’t like Dustin, she did. But only as her childhood friend. And yes, Lucas was that to her too but… It was just different somehow. She couldn’t really put her finger on why exactly, but it just was. She and Dustin got along well, it was great joking around with him, and he was able to get her nerdy side out with his unbridled enthusiasm. But dating him, kissing him like she had Lucas? The image just didn’t fit in her brain. 

“I can ask Mike to talk to him, or Lucas, if you’d like?” El suggested carefully. Max sighed, looking up at the ceiling. 

“Thanks, but I… I don’t really know what I want to say to them yet. I need to figure my own mind out first,” Max said and El nodded, getting up from the chair. She walked around the room for a minute, giving Max the time to breathe, to try to collect her thoughts after all the new information she’d gotten today. In some ways it had made everything make sense, like how Lucas always seemed very careful in front of their friends. But in other ways it didn’t make sense at all, like if he had the Oath to uphold, why had he kissed her back in the first place, and why did he agree to keep this thing of theirs going even after school started up again. She wasn’t forcing him to do any of this, right? He’d always had the chance to say no and call it off. But he hadn’t. Well, if you didn’t count him going to Homecoming with someone else and not asking her. Max groaned in frustration, running her hands over her face.

“And this whole thing happened because I heard that Lucas is taking Meg Parsons to Homecoming.”

“Oh, he is? Since when?” El replied, sounding surprised, walking over to sit on the bed next to Max.

“Since yesterday, I guess. He said Meg had asked him,” Max explained.

“Well she was the one to ask him, so maybe it wasn’t his idea,” El pointed out.

“Yeah but he could’ve turned her down,” Max said.

“I thought you didn’t care about Homecoming? You called it “a stupid waste of time for people without any brain cells”,” El said, making air quotes with her fingers, the corner of her mouth lifting in a smirk. Max rolled her eyes at her, lifting up the pillow she was holding to gently swat at her. But El was right, she had said that. She’d said that to Lucas as well, so obviously he thought she didn’t care about it. 

“I _don’t_ care about it. But…”

“But maybe most of it is that I’ve tried to convince myself that I don’t care,” Max said. El looked at her, quiet and attentive so she continued, trying to explain her thought process.

“Lucas and I agreed we’d keep our thing secret, so obviously going to Homecoming isn’t possible. So maybe I… I don’t know, tried to convince myself that I didn’t care about it, because if I hadn’t, if I was honest with myself, it would make it feel that much more shitty when we couldn’t go together.”

“But I guess I convinced myself of it too loudly, cause I managed to convince him too, and now he’s going with someone else. Probably to get back at me or something,” Max continued, her voice getting more bitter by the minute.

“Max…” El started but Max was on a roll now, getting mad again.

“Maybe I should do the same, I still have Ricky’s number I think, I could just go with him, make Lucas jealous…”

“Max, stop,” El said sternly, raising her voice a little. 

“Please don’t make this into a game of trying to one-up the bad thing the other did. It’s the thing with Kyle in Sophomore year all over again. When you egged his house after he kissed someone else.”

“You weren’t there to stop me that time,” Max pointed out with a shrug.

“But who was?” El asked pointedly.

“Lucas,” Max mumbled out, speaking up quickly to continue:

“But he didn’t stop me. He gave me the missing 25 cents to buy that carton of eggs and then came with me to keep lookout.”

“He did. Because he’s your best friend, and he’s always stuck by you, even with your crazy plans because he wouldn’t want you to get in trouble all by yourself,” El explained and Max sunk back into the bed. She was right. Lucas was her best friend, she didn’t want to hurt him, no matter how mad at him she was right now. El sighed, shifting where she sat at the foot of the bed, folding her legs to sit criss-crossed on the lavender comforter. 

“Right now, we can still salvage this,” she said, pragmatic.

“You can work this out between you two and still remain friends. Or, you know, whatever you’d like to be…” she added, her tone shifting and a spark appearing in her eye. Max huffed, swatting El with the pillow again.

“Ow!” she exclaimed, laughing and shoving the pillow back.

“But my point is,” El continued.

“If you make this into a circle of revenge, I don’t know if you can do that anymore.”

“And you want to fix this, right?”  
“Yes, of course!” Max assured her. It was like that last night of camp on the dock again, the thought of her losing Lucas felt like a physical pain in her stomach.

“I just don’t know what to do about it, what to think, what to say to him. It’s all a big mess, and it’s all my fault for kissing him. If I hadn’t, we’d still be friends and none of this would’ve happened,” Max exclaimed, yelling at the ceiling. 

“I don’t know… Would that really have been for the best?” El started carefully. Max looked her way, not understanding what she meant. El wet her lips, shifting on the bed again, turning to face her better. 

“Okay so you said you kissed him that first time because you were bored and curious and didn’t plan on it becoming a big thing. And you agreed to break it off after camp, but then you didn’t and you kissed him again. Why?”

Max turned to stare up at the ceiling again, trying to figure out how to answer. When school had started, she really had tried to stick to her word, to forget that summer and move on, to not think about Lucas anymore. And she’d started off strong on the first day back in school. She’d seen how Lucas had looked at her that morning in the hallway, and she’d brushed it off, ignored it, acted cool and like she didn’t want to kiss him right then and there. But then later in English class she’d turned around and seen him there too, felt his warm gaze on her. And then at lunch he’d kept on looking at her, probably thinking he was being subtle about it. But of course she’d noticed, but pretended she hadn’t, playing it cool until he’d bumped his knee onto the table, almost getting caught and getting all cute and flustered in front of their friends. So when she’d spotted him heading to class alone after lunch, she hadn’t really been thinking, she’d just known that she needed to talk to him, she needed to do something. Because despite how much she wanted to move on, to forget that summer, she just couldn’t do it. She wanted to selfishly cling onto it for a moment longer. She’d been sure he’d see through her shoddy study excuse right away and reject her. But he’d agreed to come over the next day and the rest was history. 

“I…” Max started, not knowing how to form all that into words.

“I know it wasn’t a smart idea but I just couldn’t pretend nothing had changed between us. I didn’t really have a plan on how it would go, I just knew that I didn’t want to, I couldn’t…” she explained, her sentence trailing off. She couldn’t what? Go back to just being friends with him? Stop hanging out with him? Stop kissing him? To pretend it didn’t make her face warm and her heart flutter when he looked at her with those kind brown eyes of his, when he smiled at her, when his fingers brushed into her hair as he gently kissed her?

“Ma-ax,” El drew out in a sing-song voice and when Max turned to look at her, she had a knowing grin on her face.

“What?”

“You’re blushing.”

This time Max really sent the pillow flying El’s way, it smacking her right in the face. But El just laughed, catching it.

“I’m not,” Max assured her stubbornly, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You so are,” El countered, throwing the pillow back at Max, it falling on her face. As she grabbed it, Max took the opportunity to feel her cheek with the back of her hand. Shit, El was right, her face was warm. She brought the pillow down from her face, huffing at El’s words. 

“Well it’s your fault for making me think about all this stuff. Stop it,” she pointed out.

“So you were? Thinking about him?” El pressed on, wiggling her eyebrows at Max, who rolled her eyes, shoving El’s knee with her foot. 

“I told you to cut it out! That’s not fair, I never make fun of you when you get all lovey-dovey about Mike,” Max argued.

“No, I’m pretty sure you do that all the time,” El pointed out.

“Okay fair, I do,” Max admitted in a mumble.

“But this isn’t like that,” she quickly continued, spreading her arms on either side of her on the bed.

“I didn’t just meet Lucas one day and realize I had a crush on him. We’ve been best friends for ages, and yeah I had that small crush on him the start of Freshman year but other than that…”

“Wait wasn’t it the other way around? That Lucas had a crush on _you_ in Freshman year?” El cut in.

“Huh?” Max asked, lifting herself up to lean on her elbows.

“Yeah, after we played spin the bottle? That’s what Mike told me at least.” 

Max furrowed her brow, deep in thought. By the time of that quick kiss at the New Year’s Eve party her crush on Lucas she'd developed at the start of the school year had been pretty much gone, and once he hadn’t reacted to it at all, she’d taken it as a sign to get over it for good. But if what El was saying was true…

“I mean, I don’t think Lucas told Mike about it flat out, but Mike said he though Lucas was crushing on you after that. Were you crushing on him too at the same time?”

“No, that was earlier, at the start of the school year. And when Lucas didn’t say anything after New Year’s, it fizzled out I guess. But I…” Max didn’t know what to say, what to do. Everything today was really throwing her for a loop it seemed like. 

“I can ask Mike to ask Lucas, I can call him right now if…” El suggested, starting to reach for the phone on the bedside table.

“No, please don’t, not yet,” Max interrupted her. She sat up, hugging the pillow to her chest. 

“It’s all… a lot just now. I need time to think, alone.” El reached out her hand for her and Max took it. 

“I completely understand. If Mike asks about it, I’ll tell him to tell Lucas that you need some time,” El assured her, squeezing her hand.

“You think Lucas would go to Mike to talk about this?”

“Probably. You’re here too, aren’t you?” El said and Max hummed in agreement, looking out the bedroom window, at the branches of the tree outside slowly swaying in the wind. Whenever she needed someone to talk to, she nearly always went to Lucas, and it was the same with him. And now when she really needed to talk to him, she couldn’t. Not yet. She’d talk to him, but not right now. 

“I thought I had this under control, that I could keep our thing just a casual summer fling. After going out with Kyle, and Ricky, I thought I knew how to do this. But, this is so different. Lucas was my best friend first, and I didn’t want to ruin that by making things serious. But I don’t know, I just can’t seem to get it right. Just kissing him was nice, more than nice, but I can’t help myself from thinking about… wondering what it would be like to do things like Homecoming, or getting to talk to you about this, or hell, just like, holding his stupid hand and stuff,” Max mumbled out the last words, the heat in her cheeks flaring up again. God she was lame. El didn’t say anything, though Max could imagine her smiling knowingly.

“Max,” she started after a minute, turning to look at her.

“As much as I appreciate you telling me all this, I think right now Lucas is the person who needs to hear this.”

“I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” Max said, thinking back to their fight, dread and regret creeping up in her.

“I’m sure he does,” El said, her expression warm and empathetic when Max turned back to face her. 

“I’m not sure. I did yell at him a whole lot,” Max pointed out with a sigh.

“And nearly broke his arm dragging him around the school. I wouldn’t blame him for never speaking to me again.”

“Just… give yourself some time and then talk to him. I’m sure it’ll all turn out fine in the end,” El assured her. Max nodded, really wishing she could be as optimistic. 

“But, until then. You need something to take your mind off of this,” El said after a minute, an energetic smile on her face.

“Sure, what do you have in mind?” Max asked. El scooted over on the bed, coming to sit beside Max where she was leaning against the headboard. 

“So, Homecoming?”

“Ugh, don’t even mention that,” Max groaned. She felt so stupid now, freaking out at Lucas over something so dumb.

“No, no, hear me out!” El said.

“We could make it a girls’ night out? You could come over here before and we could get ready, it would be so fun!”

“But, aren’t you going with Mike?” Max asked. She really didn’t want to ruin El’s night. Or worse, be stuck third-wheeling the entire time.

“Yes, but I’m sure he’d be fine with it. We’d still have the Winter Formal and Prom, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” El assured her. Max pursed her lips together, considering the offer. It would be a nice distraction, and El could probably keep an eye out and help her avoid seeing Lucas at the dance with Meg.

After thinking about it for a while Max sighed, turning to El who had been eagerly waiting for her reply.

“Is this just an attempt to get you to paint my nails again?” she asked with a grin.

“So is that a yes?” El asked, smiling brightly.

“Yeah, why not,” Max said, just happy to make El happy, and figuring this would be for the best. Maybe she needed a distraction from all this.

“Great!” El replied, jumping up from her bed and starting to head for her closet, already talking about a dress Max could borrow. And Max acted all blasé about it, saying she didn’t really care about what she would wear, but deep down she knew she needed a nice distraction like this. She’d get her mind off of Lucas for a couple of days and then she’d be ready to talk to him.

* * *

**Lucas's POV**

Maybe he could just transfer schools. Yeah, it would suck to do it in the middle of Senior year, and he had no clue how to convince his parents that it was a good idea, but what else was he gonna do? Spend the rest of the school year like he had today? Sneaking around and checking over his shoulder and around corners for Max, avoiding ever being in the same room as her. Dustin hadn’t said anything about the whole incident the whole day, but when they’d sat next to each other in class Lucas had seen him glancing over at him, probably checking if he was still mad. And he wasn’t anymore, not really. He was still a little annoyed at Dustin, but most of all Lucas was just mad at himself, and how he’d handled this all with Max. He should’ve just been clear with her from the beginning, told her that he really wanted to kiss her back, but he needed to come clean about the Oath first. That would’ve given her a chance to know the whole situation and not kept her in the dark about it like he had now. Then maybe the two of them could’ve had the chance to do all this properly, without all the lying and sneaking around.

The past day he’d been thinking back to all the other arguments and fights they’d had over the last ten years, trying to remember how they’d solved them and gotten past them. He remembered one fight they’d had back in elementary school when Max had thrown his lunch into the duck pond at the zoo, but he had no idea what the fight had been about and how they’d made up after it. It just seemed like that with all the previous fights and arguments they’d had, things had just returned to normal after a while, fallen back into place naturally. But this time Lucas had a feeling that wasn’t the case. And he had no idea what to do.

There was a knock on his bedroom door and Lucas turned to look at it from where he was laying on his bed.

“Come in,” he called out. The door opened and his mom stepped in.

“Hi Lucas, just wanted to ask if you’re going to be home for dinner tonight?” she asked. Lucas sat up on the bed, his brow furrowing slightly.

“Yeah, why would I not?”

“It’s Wednesday? You’re usually out working on your school project,” Mom explained. Oh, right.

“Oh, umm, we’re finished with that now,” Lucas said. He couldn’t believe that just one week ago he’d been over in Max’s room, joking around with her, kissing her. With how easy and comfortable it had felt, he’d let himself believe that they could keep it going forever. He’d been wrong.

“Oh alright. Well did you get a good grade on it? You and Will sure put a lot of work into it,” Mom asked, just being curious but her words made that familiar ache caused by lying to twist up in Lucas’s stomach. Once he’d figured out how he would clear things up with Max and Dustin, he’d have to come clean to his mom too. 

“No, not yet, we just handed the project in on Friday,” Lucas said and his mom smiled, nodding, already going to head back to the kitchen.

“Mom, do you need any help? With dinner?” Lucas called out after her before she could close the door behind her. She turned back to look at him, looking surprised but glad.

“Sure, if you want to? You could set the table?” she suggested and at that Lucas nodded, getting up from the bed and crossing the room in a few steps to get to the door. 

“Okay, what’s for dinner?” he asked, brushing past his mom, flashing her a smile. Maybe it was time for him to get a break from just moping around in his room, and maybe helping out his mom was a start in making up for the way he’d acted the past month.

After dinner Lucas stayed to help clean up, Erica working alongside him, scraping the leftover pasta into the tupperware, animatedly recounting a story of something that had happened in Debate club earlier. 

“And Todd was totally unprepared, I don’t think he’d done any research on our position on the Haiti coup debate. It was so embarrassing,” Erica explained, shaking her head in disapproval, reaching into the kitchen cupboard next to Lucas to get the lid for the leftover container.

“Good thing Max was in our team, she really came through, saved our argument,” she added, grabbing the lid from the cupboard and turning away. 

“Honestly, she’s like the only non-nerd you hang out with,” she said.

“Didn’t you just say she was there with you debating a coup in Haiti?” Lucas said back, lifting his brows at her, putting the last of the plates into the dishwasher.

“That’s a topical issue, it’s not nerdy,” Erica defended herself, opening the fridge room to put the leftovers inside.

“Sure,” Lucas drew out, going to wash his hands.

“But yeah, congrats on managing to get one non nerdy friend. You guys could take some pointers from her. Though…” Erica paused, turning to him.

“You would think her coolness would’ve rubbed off on you in the past, what, ten years you guys have been friends?”

“Yeah, ten,” Lucas said, trying not to cringe as he once again thought about how those ten years of friendship were ruined now after this mess.

“So maybe you’re just a lost cause then,” Erica said, shrugging, as she slammed the fridge door shut. 

The phone on the kitchen wall suddenly rang, and Erica who was closest grabbed it.

“It’s Mike,” she said, looking bored that it wasn’t for her, extending the phone over to Lucas. He took it, Erica walking out the room and heading for the living room to watch tv.

“Hello?” Lucas answered, lifting the phone up to his ear.

“Hey, it’s me. Are you doing anything right now?” Mike asked.

“No, just got done eating dinner. Why?” Lucas asked, leaning his shoulder against the kitchen wall. 

“I um, wondered if you’d wanna come over for a bit? To talk about this whole thing with someone,” Mike explained.

“Did El tell you?” Lucas asked, his face in a grimace. 

“Just the basics, but come on, man. Seeing how weird everyone's been acting recently, it didn’t take much to put two and two together,” Mike said. 

Lucas sighed, bringing his arm over his eyes, squeezing them shut. He’d figured it was only a matter of time until Mike found out about this too. Maybe it was finally time to talk to him.

“Okay,” Lucas said after taking a moment to think.

“I’ll be there in a bit.”

The early October air was getting chilly with the setting sun, and Lucas had to put up the hood of his sweatshirt and shove his hands into his pockets even though it didn’t take that long to take the shortcut to Mike’s through the backyards of the houses lining Maple Street. When he got to the basement door, knocking on it, Mike was soon there to open the door. He didn’t say anything as he let Lucas in, going back to sit on the old beat-up armchair in the corner of the basement, picking up the NES controller, offering the other one to Lucas. He took it, pulling down his hood and sitting down on the couch and for a while they played _Contra_ in silence, the action sound effects of the game loud in the otherwise quiet basement. Lucas knew that Mike was giving him time, trying not to force him to speak and he appreciated it. The mechanic pressing of buttons and gunning down pixelated enemies gave him a chance to arrange his thoughts. 

After ten minutes they ended up in the game start screen after a game over, and Lucas sighed, dropping his controller on the couch next to him. He wasn’t sure how much Mike knew after asking El, so he figured he’d just start from the beginning. 

“Max kissed me at camp this summer. And we’ve been doing that ever since, trying to keep it from you guys. But Dustin found out yesterday because he overheard a fight me and Max had where I accidentally told her about our eight grade Oath. So basically now Max is mad at me for not telling her about it and just about the whole lame Oath in general. And Dustin is mad at me for not keeping my word and kissing Max behind his back. So it’s all going just great!” Lucas explained, throwing his hands up in frustration.

“He’s not mad at you,” Mike pointed out.

“Who?”

“Dustin. I talked to him today, and he doesn’t seem mad. He’s embarrassed as all hell, and a little sad, but I think it’s more about you keeping secrets from us than anything.”

“But he told me he still has a crush on Max?” Lucas asked, confused.

“Maybe, but I think he’s kind of known for a while that it wasn’t really realistic. I don’t think he really seriously thought something was going to happen between the two of them. So I don’t think it’s you getting with her that’s bothering him, it’s the fact that you didn’t tell us,” Mike said, turning to face Lucas in the armchair.

“That Oath of his was the whole reason why I wanted to keep it a secret! If it hadn’t been for that, I would’ve been fine with telling you guys,” Lucas explained, frustrated. After pausing to think he added, his voice getting less indignant: 

“But Max wanted to keep it a secret too, so it doesn’t even matter.”

“She told you that? That you should keep your thing a secret?” Mike asked.

“Yeah. She said it would be better if we just kept it as a short casual summer thing. But…” Lucas said, his sentence trailing off as he looked down.

“But what?” Mike asked, turning in his seat to look at Lucas better. 

“She was also the one who started it up again once we were back in school. So I don’t know what to think,” Lucas explained, turning the controller in his hands. It was all so confusing, thinking about the reasoning behind her words and actions had taken at least half of his brain capacity at any given time these past couple months.   
“She kept saying how we shouldn’t make it into a serious thing, that we shouldn’t tell anyone. But then she also wanted to hang out and go out together, just the two of us. That’s what we were supposed to do last weekend before you guys invited me to the video store.”

“That’s why Max was there! We were interrupting your date,” Mike said, realization clear on his face.

“It wasn’t a date,” Lucas was quick to point out.

“You wanted to go out and hang out just the two of you? Sounds like a date to me,” Mike replied point-blank, like it was as simple as that.

Lucas rolled his eyes, continuing:

“Well in any case, after that she told me that it had been a mistake and that we shouldn’t try to do stuff like that again. She said we should just stick to making out and never talking about it to anyone. But then she got mad when she found out that I’m going to Homecoming with Meg Parsons, even though she’d told me that she didn’t care about going.”

“When did you ask Meg?” Mike asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. 

“After AV, when you said I should get a distraction from Max. And I didn’t ask her, she asked me,” Lucas explained and Mike nodded along.

“Well I wouldn’t have said all that if I knew what was going on with you two. I just thought you guys were having a regular argument,” he said. Lucas sighed, leaning forward, burying his face into his hands. 

“I don’t even know why I agreed when Meg asked me to go with her,” he said, leaning his back back against the sofa. 

“She’s nice and all, but I don’t feel anything for her. Not like I do for Max.”

“So you do?” Mike asked, a knowing grin playing at the corner of his lips.

“You’ve got feelings for her?”

That made Lucas pause. He hadn’t really thought about it much when he’d said it, but… What else would he classify all this as? How he seemed to never get enough of kissing Max, but how he’d also sometimes catch himself looking at her and thinking how cute her nose was, or how he wanted to kiss that little crease that appeared between her brows when she was confused or concentrated, and how he’d really like to take her to Homecoming, or to the movies, or over to his house to have dinner with his family. 

“Yeah, I do,” he finally said, and even with how daunting it was to say that out loud, it also felt incredibly freeing. The words were out now, he couldn’t take them back. But it still didn’t change the current situation.

“But it doesn’t matter cause I’ve messed it all up. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t want anything to do with me after this.”

Mike didn’t say anything and Lucas turned to look his way. 

“Did she, um, say anything to El?” Lucas asked, trying to sound casual, like he wasn’t dying to know what Max had told El.

“El just told me the basic details. I’m sure she figured I’d be talking to you and didn’t want to spill all the things Max told her in confidence,” Mike explained. Lucas sighed, looking ahead at the wooden stairs leading out of the basement. That made sense, and it was the good thing to do for a friend. But he still would’ve liked to know what Max had said about him.

“But El did say that Max needs some time to think about this. So maybe give her a couple more days,” Mike continued. 

Lucas nodded, looking down at where he was worrying his hands in his lap. That could work, he’d keep his distance, and then maybe inevitably one of them would work up the courage to talk about this. Until that he would just avoid her like he had today. Yeah. He could work with that. 

“You just need to figure out what you’re gonna do with Homecoming on Friday,” Mike said.

“What do you mean?”

“El said she and Max are going, as like a girls night, so you need to decide how to handle that whole situation.”

“They are? Shit, this whole thing is ruining your guys’ night, I’m sorry, man,” Lucas said, genuinely sorry to hear that this whole mess of a situation had blown up so much.

“Well, we ruined your date, I guess this is payback,” Mike shrugged.

“But you’d better work this out before Senior Prom,” he added, pointing his finger over at Lucas.

“I will. You’ll get your Prom,” Lucas assured him and Mike seemed happy with it.

“Maybe I’ll just stay home? Go set up the audio equipment and then leave before Max and El get there,” Lucas suggested, thinking out loud. Maybe he should just wait this out, give Max space like she had asked.

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Mike pointed out.

“What?” Lucas asked.

“The fact that you promised to go with Meg?”

Mike was right. Lucas had totally forgotten about Meg, and he felt like shit about it. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and he was getting her involved in this whole mess. 

“I think the first thing you need to do is call her,” Mike said.

“You need to tell her what’s going on, and then let her decide if she still wants to go with you. She didn’t know she was signing up for all this when she asked you to Homecoming, you need to be clear with her and give her a chance to change her plans. But you need to do it as soon as possible so she still has a couple days to ask someone else if she wants to,” Mike explained.

“You’re right. I’ll call her tonight,” Lucas said, nodding.

“But what do I even say to her?” he added. 

“Just tell her what you told me. Be clear with her and say that you’re sorry but you don’t like her that way, and that you don’t want to lead her on or anything. I’m sure she’ll understand,” Mike said and Lucas nodded along. He was right.

“Since when are _you_ the one to give _me_ girl advice? When did you become such an expert?” Lucas asked, a smile starting to tug at the corner of his lips.

Mike shrugged.

“Well like you said, you’ve been giving me plenty of advice over the past four years so I guess I’ve finally started to catch on. Plus, I’m actually dating a girl,” Mike explained with a smirk.

“But honestly,” he continued, his tone more sincere now.

“You can handle this, dude. Clear things out with Meg, give Max time and when she has thought it through, just talk to her.” 

“I will,” Lucas said, nodding along.

“Thanks. For the advice,” he added after a minute and Mike waved him off, picking up the controller again.

“Anytime, dude. But hey, one more go of clearing this level?”

“If you manage not to fall from that platform again, Wheeler!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Sorry it's taken me ages to update! I pretty much rewrote half of this and the next chapter so it took some time, but I think I'm happy with them now! I'll try to post the final chapter sometime in the beginning of next week, so you won't have to wait forever for an update again. It's the least I can do to thank you for being so great and waiting for this chapter. I hope you liked it and stay tuned for the final chapter!


	8. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time for the Hawkins High Homecoming Dance of 1988. Will it be be an unforgettable night, or one Max and Lucas would rather forget? Read this final chapter to find out!  
> **  
> Quick note: I changed the fic title, hope it's not too confusing but having finished writing it, it fit much better.

**Lucas's POV**

As Lucas walked through the doors of the school gym after his last class on Friday, he saw the large room filled with Homecoming prep chaos. Somehow Garrett and Josh were already arguing about the right way to wire up the DJ table and place the speakers, which led to Lucas and Dale having to haul the heavy speakers around the room, only to have to pick them up and move them again. Around them the dance committee was hard at work, organizing the round plastic tables around the gym, leaving the middle of the hardwood floor free for dancing. Between crouching down on the floor to set down wire tape and moving speakers, Lucas was able to look around enough to guess the dance’s theme had something to do with stars, as there were sparkly streamers everywhere, a huge sheet showing a night sky vista hanging behind the DJ station. As the hours rushed by, the space was little by little transformed from a sweaty gym to an appropriate place for a school dance, and Lucas had to give it to the dance committee, they were doing a great job with it all. As he worked on drawing the wires and connecting the speakers around the room, he tried to glance around to see where Meg was, but he couldn’t see her among all the people bustling around. She’d been surprisingly okay with it all when he had called her on Wednesday, but Lucas still felt awkward about the whole thing.

One by one the rest of the organizing group slipped out the gym to go and get changed into their dance outfits, and Lucas realized the four of them were running it pretty tight with the audio set-up.

“And now? Does it work?” Garrett asked, wiping sweat off his brow, ducking out from where he had been rewiring the setup under the DJ table. Lucas turned the sound system back on again and all four of them hovered over the table in anticipation as it whirred to life, the needle lifting and moving onto the spinning record. When the music finally flooded out the speakers they all let out breaths of relief.

“Finally!” Lucas said.

“And not a moment too soon, it’s ten minutes till eight,” Josh said, checking his watch.

“Shit, you’re right!” Dale echoed, looking over at the entrance of the gym to see that some of the other organizers were back already, all dressed in their colorful dresses and tuxes.

“But we’re all good here, right? I gotta run and pick up Addison, she’s gonna kill me if I’m late,” Josh explained, rushing off with a wave.

Lucas figured he should go too, picking up his backpack and looking around, trying to think of a place where he could go to change into his clothes for the dance. He walked through the gym, looking at the disco ball turning overhead and its lights catching the sparkly decorations everywhere.

“What do you think?” Lucas was stopped in his tracks by the voice and looked ahead to see Meg walking up to him, her hands on her hips, also surveying the room around them. 

“It looks great, you guys did a good job,” he replied truthfully.

“Thanks, I’m really happy with how it turned out too,” she said, looking around with a proud smile. 

“I hope you guys are happy with the sound setup. If it sounds weird or anything just let us know and we can tweak it,” Lucas said but Meg just waved her hand dismissively.

“It sounds great, don’t worry about it!”

Lucas nodded and then they fell into an awkward silence for a minute, more and more people entering into the gym around them, the song changing as the designated DJ for the night got to the table. Lucas hadn’t talked to Meg since the phone call, and he didn’t know what to say. 

“Hey um,” he started, figuring he should say something.

“Thanks again for taking this so well, I know what I did was such a dick move and…”

“Yeah, but you owned up to it and called me. You could’ve just ditched me and embarrassed me. I really appreciate it. And I totally understand where you’re coming from, I wouldn’t have asked you in the first place if I knew what your whole situation was,” Meg explained.

“Well I don’t know if it’s a whole _situation_...” Lucas mumbled, lifting up his hand to scratch the back of his neck.

“Sounds like one to me,” Meg commented with a smirk.

“I hope you guys get to speak it through. Is she coming tonight?”

“Yeah, but she said she needs time, so I’ll just lay low, not bother her if she doesn’t want to speak to me,” Lucas explained, his cheeks heating up a bit as he recounted his plan to Meg.

“Fair enough. But good luck, I’m sure you’ll work it out,” Meg assured him.

“Thanks,” he said. He really was thankful how understanding Meg had been with all this.

“You look nice by the way,” Lucas added politely, gesturing at her frilly bright red dress.

“Thank you,” Meg replied, flashing him a happy smile, swishing the full skirt of her dress. And Lucas was relieved that her smile was all friendly, and not like the smiles she had sent his day back in the AV room. 

“You look um…” Meg started replying but then she scanned over his jeans and t-shirt, her face scrunching up in hesitation. Lucas lifted up his backpack with his change of clothes in it and Meg seemed to get what he meant.

“Right, well a bunch of people were changing in the locker room, just squeeze past the coat check and there should be room there,” she explained, turning and pointing at the doors leading out to the hall. 

“Will do, thanks,” Lucas said and with a couple more polite smiles and ‘see you laters’ he left the gym, walking through the foyer where the organizers were buzzing about, ready to open the doors in five minutes to start letting people in.

He walked past the makeshift coat check organized in one end of the hallway and went into the boys’ locker room, finding it pretty empty already, as most of the other people had already changed. As he got out of his school clothes and started to put on his suit, he heard the sound of people walking and chatting in the foyer getting louder and he figured the doors had just been opened. Now he could only hope that they had set up the sound system well and there wouldn’t be any problems with it. But he guessed it was out of his hands, Elliott and Charlie were in official standby duty in case of any hiccups with the audio. 

Having buttoned up his light blue dress shirt, he stepped in front of the mirror, starting to tie his tie. He had originally planned on just skipping it, since it wasn’t Prom or anything, but his Mom had insisted, saying it completed the look. She had also insisted he’d go and get a picture of himself taken at the photo station so she could see how he looked. And Lucas didn’t want to let her down, but he wasn’t about to go take a picture all by himself like a total dork. Maybe he’d get the guys to take a picture together at some point.

Lucas frowned as he tied the blue patterned tie into a knot. He still hadn’t talked things through with Dustin. Mike had been right, he didn’t seem mad when Lucas saw him at school, he was mainly just being careful and skirting around the subject, only talking about surface level stuff when they shared classes or had lunch. But Lucas knew he had to talk to Dustin about the whole fight. Only then they could start to move on from it. Maybe he’d do that tonight. 

The tie only took one more try to get it right and then Lucas pulled on his grey suit jacket, smoothing out the creases from it being stuffed into his backpack for the whole day. He got out a hair pick from his bag, leaning back towards the mirror again to work at his hair for a bit and then he was done and ready to go back out. He walked to the door of the locker room, listening to the loud hum of happy chatter and clicking of dress shoes and heels against linoleum coming from the foyer and hoped he could just slip through the crowd unnoticed and then park himself at the table in the corner next to the DJ table, avoiding Max for the whole night. He opened the door, immediately walking into a whir of action as the people attending the coat check were busy walking around, hanging people’s coats and giving them their tags for them. Lucas was almost smacked in the face by a huge lavender puffy coat as he turned to walk along one of the isles between the rows of coat racks. It was the beginning of October, who would even wear that already?

“Oh, sorry,” the girl carrying the coat said as she hurried past and Lucas had turned his head towards her to say it was okay when he felt another coat being thrusted into his arms from the front counter.

“Wha-, sorry I’m the audio guy, I don’t…” he started, turning to look forward and the guy working the desk apologized, handing the coats over to another person. But Lucas didn’t really pay attention because he’d just seen whose coats they were.

“Oh, Lucas, hi!” El said, sounding perfectly polite as she gave him a happy smile and a wave from the other side of the counter. Max standing next to her wasn’t masking her surprise as well, her eyes going wide for a second before she looked away, pretending to look in through the gym doors. They were both wearing knee-length dresses made out of some shiny material and El looked nice in her purple dress with big poofy sleeves, and Max… Well Lucas tried his all to just focus on El as he was sure the last thing Max wanted was him gawking at her right now. He needed to give her space, not be a creepy weirdo fixating on how she looked. But the question that had been on his mind that afternoon in her room last week got an answer. She did look really great in a dress. 

“Hi guys,” he said, trying to seem like suddenly bumping into them hadn’t freaked him out. 

“All ready with the audio set up?” El asked, keeping up the polite small talk as they waited to get the tickets for their coats.

“Yeah, it should be fine now. We changed the placement of the loudspeakers like five times for optimal surround sound, so I hope you appreciate it,” Lucas rambled, going to shove his hands into his pockets, forgetting he was wearing a suit, and the jacket getting in the way, making it look beyond awkward. 

“That’s great, we’ll definitely listen out for it and give feedback,” El replied with an amicable laugh, trying to save the conversation.

“Right?”, she added, bumping Max’s arm with her elbow, trying to get her to engage in the conversation. El turned to look at Max and before he could think about it, Lucas did the same, his gaze landing on Max, his stomach swooping the moment it did. The dress she was wearing was a sky-blue color, made of shiny material and with loads of ruffles at the skirt. The top part of the dress was just as shiny, with a sweetheart neckline and short sleeves that… Oh god he was staring at her, he had to get his shit together! 

“Yeah, um, sure,” Max muttered, and Lucas had kind of forgotten what she was answering to but he still nodded along, looking down at the floor, trying to ignore his brain as it spun him intricate scenarios of how in some alternate universe he would be allowed to look at her, tell her how beautiful she looked, have her as his date. 

“Here you go,” Lucas stepped aside as the guy working the cloak room pushed past him to hand El and Max their tickets. 

“Thank you,” El said brightly, taking the tickets and handing Max hers. They stood awkwardly for a moment, the room abuzz around them, the music flooding in through the open doors to the gym. 

“Hey I’ll just um, go to the bathroom real quick before we go in. Can you wait for me for just a second? I’ll be right back,” El quickly told Max, already turning away with a cheery wave to Lucas. Max tried to grab her arm, hissing something under her breath but to no avail as El shook her off with an indistinct whisper of her own before disappearing into the crowd of people filling the hallway. Max pursed her lips together, slowly turning on her heel to face Lucas again, and he could swear her cheeks had gotten a little more red, visible even through the makeup she had on. She did wear makeup sometimes, but this was the whole shabang, full on lipstick and blush and glittery blue eyeshadow that made her eyes look so pretty and sparkling…

“Well um, I’ll go check on the speakers so…” Lucas started, a little too loudly just to overpower his own racing thoughts, sidestepping to walk around the table. 

“Wait,” Max cut him off, taking a step towards him. Lucas blinked at her, confused and she looked down, twisting the piece of paper in her hands. Was he seeing things or had she actually painted her nails? That had to have been El.

“I umm,” she started, looking back up at him.

“I talked to Dustin today. I apologized to him for lying and he apologized for the Oath. It was super awkward but I think we talked it through.” Lucas nodded along as she explained.

“He asked me to tell you that if you’re not mad at him anymore, you should go talk to him.”

“Okay, I will,” Lucas replied and he meant it, he really intended to talk to Dustin. But while Max had been speaking she’d also lifted up her hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear and drawn his attention to it and wow wow wow her hair! Of course he knew her hair looked nice, he’d noticed it many times, more and more this summer onwards as he’d noticed how it shined in tones of gold and copper in the sunlight, and how incredibly soft it felt when he brushed his fingers through it when they kissed. He’d always thought her hair looked beautiful but right now it looked outright stunning. He didn’t know how she’d done it but her hair was in huge, voluminous copper curls, tumbling down on her freckled shoulders, shifting every time she moved, creating a beautiful bright halo around her head.

“Cool, well um, I’ll let you go and find Meg then, don’t want to hold you up,” Max said, turning her head to look into the gym and as she did, the hair she’d tucked behind her ear fell free, falling onto her shoulder, one curl nestling right at her jaw and her cheeks were rosy and her lips were shiny and... 

“Yeah, sure,” Lucas replied, totally missing what she was saying, letting his gaze stay on her face as she kept looking away. God she looked gorgeous.

“Oh, well, bye then,” she said, her face scrunching up in disappointment for a second before she abruptly turned and walked away. Lucas was left standing in place, confused and surprised, being yanked back into reality, the loud bass of the music from the gym flooding back in. Where did she go, what had she said? Wait, had she mentioned Meg? Max did know that him and Meg hadn’t come to the dance as dates after all, right? Right? 

Suddenly gaining the movement of his limbs back, Lucas finally left the coat check table, weaving through the dense crowd and into the gym, craning his neck to try and spot where Max had gone. He needed to make sure she knew.

“Lucas, hey,” Lucas felt someone’s hand landing on his shoulder and turned to see Dustin, wearing a colorful suit and bowtie combo, his go-to-look for school dances, and giving him a nervous smile.

“Oh, hi, what’s up?” Lucas answered, turning his head once again to look over the crowd, but the colorful lights and mirror ball reflections sweeping through the otherwise dimly lit room made it hard to spot anyone. 

“Are you in audio duty now, do you have a minute?” Dustin asked.

“No I…” Lucas started, still scanning the crowd. Deciding it was a lost cause for now, he turned back to face Dustin and said:

“Yeah, I’ve got time.”

“Okay good, cause I just wanted to talk to you,” Dustin said, taking a couple steps back to make some distance to the busy dance floor and Lucas followed him.

“Okay, what about?” Lucas asked.

“I don’t know if you’d had the chance to talk to Mike yet, or Max but…” Dustin continued and Lucas cut in to answer.

“I just talked to Max, she said you guys worked things out?” Lucas said and Dustin looked relieved as he nodded and said:

“Yeah, we did.”

He sighed, seeming to collect his words before turning to Lucas.

“I’m sorry for being so obnoxious about the whole Oath thing, I know it was dumb and it shouldn’t matter anymore, I just…”

“Dude, no, don’t say that. We were kids when we made it. I would’ve probably done the same thing if I was in your position. We were all so clueless,” Lucas hurried to reply. Dustin shrugged and Lucas continued: 

“I’m sorry for sneaking behind your back like that. Maybe I shouldn’t have kissed Max back at camp, I should’ve cleared things out with you first.” 

“I don’t know, I guess I just didn’t think you cared about the Oath anymore and it honestly was supposed to be just a summer thing between me and Max. We didn’t plan on it becoming this whole mess.”

“What you said was right though,” Dustin pointed out. When Lucas furrowed his brow in slight confusion, he continued:

“You can’t call dibs on a person. I can’t just claim some stupid priority over getting to ask Max out and then wait for years without shooting my shot and then get mad when she likes you instead.”

“So if she kisses you, you shouldn’t be busy stressing over how I would feel about it. Just figure out how _you_ feel about it,” he concluded and for a moment the two of them were quiet, watching as the lights swept over the busy dance floor.

“Still,” Lucas started up again.

“I’m sorry we’ve been sneaking behind your guys’ backs. I guess we just wanted to figure out what we were first before putting it out in the open like that.”  
“So have you? Figured it out?” Dustin asked, seeming genuinely curious and supportive.

“Not yet. I was planning on waiting until next week, to give Max time to think about it, but maybe…”

“I think you should talk to her tonight,” Dustin commented.

“You do?” Lucas asked.

“Yeah, why not. When we talked earlier today, it didn’t seem like she was mad at you or anything, if that’s what you’re worried about. I think she just wants to clear things up,” Dustin explained and Lucas nodded, looking over the crowd, hoping the universe were on his side and he’d suddenly spot her. No luck.

“Okay. I’ll try to find her then. Once I’ve figured out what to say,” he said, feeling resolute and scared out of his mind at the same time.

“Good. But while you think about that, let’s find Will and Mike and get some punch!” Dustin said, starting to head back into the center of the room, loudly gushing about how Eric Price had told to anyone in shop class who would listen how he was going to try to spike the punch.

* * *

**Max's POV**

The Homecoming Dance was going fine. Well, fine considering the circumstances. The circumstances being that Max had been left alone at the table as Mike and El had gone to pose for pictures at the photo station and left her to sip the sickly sweet punch and look around the glittering gym as people on the dance floor were happily dancing along to some Whitney Houston song. She’d kicked off her shoes a while back, and was now busy massaging her heel onto the floor. The shoes she’d borrowed from El were a size too small, but since she’d forgotten her only pair of heels at home, they’d been the only option. Max had to admit, it had been fun getting ready together in El’s room, eating pizza, blasting music and picking out outfits. Max wouldn’t call herself a girly girl, mainly because she just didn’t have the time and patience it took, but it was still fun doing stuff like that every once in a while. And she liked the dress El had lent her, the blue color made her eyes look brighter and the ruffles of the skirt were just flashy enough without going overboard. The real miracle of the night was her hair. Max had no idea how El and Joyce had managed to get it looking like that, but it had taken well over an hour and at least a metric ton of hairspray and now Max couldn’t help but reach up and touch it, despite El constantly reminding her not to. Though - Max thought as the song changed - what did her hair need to look nice for anymore anyways? They’d arrived, walked around in the gym and since then Max had been sitting at the table, moping. And speaking of her moping, and the cause of it…

She’d known Lucas would be at the dance with Meg, and no, she hadn’t gotten all prettied up to impress him or make him jealous or anything - she'd done it solely cause it had been fun and she wanted to try it out for a change - but she’d still expected him to say something to her. She hadn’t expected him to compliment her, or to fall to her feet asking for her forgiveness at the mere sight of her, but still… She’d expected something other than him basically just ignoring her for the whole short while they’d talked out by the coat check. When El had left and Max had decided to be the bigger person and finally talk to him, to bring up what happened on Tuesday, he’d barely said two words to her, purposely avoiding looking straight at her. Was he still so embarrassed about the fight? Maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet? And when she’d brought up Meg - which was petty, she knew it, but she’d been frustrated, okay - he hadn’t said anything to it, there’d been no apology, no regret, no nothing. After her talk with Dustin had gone so well, Max had planned on being brave and talking things through with Lucas tonight, but after speaking to him, she was now back to plan A, which was sulking away on the sidelines, doing her best to avoid seeing Lucas and Meg together, cursing how she’d handled this all. 

As another song came on, Max emptied her plastic cup of punch and got up, figuring she’d take another lap around the gym and pass by the snacks table. She slowly toured the room, stopping to say hi to some people from class or from the soccer team. When she walked past the photo station, she saw El and Mike lining up for pictures and met El’s eye and seeing a question in her look, she lifted up her empty cup and pointed towards the refreshments table. El nodded, giving her a smile before returning to her conversation with Mike, leaning close to his side. Max walked over to the drinks table, glancing over at the dance floor where couples were forming up as that song from Dirty Dancing came on. And no, she definitely wasn’t looking to see if Lucas and Meg were one of those couples. 

“Want some more punch, Max?” the person working the table asked in a cheery voice and Max whipped her head forward, her stomach suddenly sinking. She really hoped she’d hear wrong. 

“Woah, your hair looks awesome! Look at all that volume!” Meg exclaimed, looking beyond impressed, her eyes focused on Max’s hair. Max gulped, trying to fix a polite smile onto her face. Meg wasn’t who she had had the fight with, she’d done nothing wrong in this. If anything, Max had caused this whole thing herself by telling Meg Lucas was single back on the last day of camp. If she’d been honest and told her that she liked him, then she wouldn’t have asked Lucas to the dance. 

“Thanks,” Max said, brushing the curls over her shoulder. 

“El and her mom worked wonders on it, I have no idea how to replicate this ever again,” she admitted and Meg let out a light laugh, extending her hand and Max gave her her empty cup for her to scoop punch into.

“My problem is that every time I get a blowout and a curl, my hair looks super cute for like an hour and then it gets super frizzy,” Meg explained, animatedly waving her hand over her hair.

“I was able to squeeze in a hair appointment just before eight today, and I got all my pictures out of the way so now it can frizz out all it wants,” she explained with a laugh and a shrug, passing Max the cup of punch. 

“Come on, your hair always looks great,” Max argued back. Because it was true. Even at camp, where the shower pressure was shit and the humidity was insane on some days, Meg had always looked nice. 

“Thank you!” Meg replied and dammit why was she this genuinely nice and sincere, it would be a lot easier to be mad at her if she wasn't. 

“So,” Meg continued talking to Max, seeming chatty as she went to fill more cups.

“What do you think of the decorations and everything? Jennifer’s aunt works at this huge party planning warehouse store so we got all these streamers and stuff for a discount,” she explained.

“It looks really good,” Max said, taking a look around the gym again. It really did look nice, the lights were reflecting on the disco ball and the shiny and sparkly decorations, making the whole room sparkle.

“Thanks! It was a lot of effort putting this all together though. I’m so happy I didn’t sign up to head the Prom planning committee,” Meg commented.

“And like Lucas probably told you, I completely forgot about getting myself a date because I was so busy planning this thing, can you imagine!” she exclaimed with a laugh.

“Haha, yeah,” Max replied, trying to hide the dryness of her laugh.

“But with his audio duty and stuff, it’s good you guys got together and worked it out,” she added, forcing a sweet smile onto her face as she gripped tightly onto the plastic cup in her hand.

There was a clanking sound as Meg set the ladle down into the plastic punch bowl.

“Wait, has he not talked to you yet? He said he was going to,” he said, looking confused.

“Well yeah we kinda talked but not for long, I let him come find you so…” Max explained quickly, wanting nothing more than to leave already and put an end to this humiliation.

“Why would he? Max, we’re not here as dates.”

“What?” Max asked, her brow furrowing, sure there was something wrong with her hearing cause it had sounded like she’d just said that…

“Yeah, he’s not my date.”

“He called me two days ago and said that he only saw me as a friend and he didn’t want to lead me on in any way by agreeing to come here with me when I asked him.”

“He…” Max started, but her brain was too busy being turned upside down for her to form a coherent sentence.

“Yeah, and I said it was fine, and honestly, I was going to be too busy tonight anyway, my date would’ve just been standing around waiting for me the whole time and getting annoyed, so I figured it was for the best, you know,” Meg explained, shrugging.

“But what… what did he say exactly. When he called you?” Max finally spoke, her confusion still strong.

A knowing smirk played in the corner of Meg’s lips as she took the ladle again, filling another cup. 

“He really hasn’t talked to you? That boy…”

“What do you mean?” Max asked, her confusion starting to give way to frustration. What was going on?

“He told me he couldn’t take me to Homecoming because he had feelings for someone else that he couldn’t ask to be his date. And if we did come here together, he’d just be thinking about her the whole time. It didn’t take me long to put two and two together,” Meg explained. Max watched, stunned, as she set down a full cup of punch on the table.

“But…” she started, but Meg continued on.

“I had a feeling there was something going on with you two at camp, that’s why I asked you about Lucas. But when you said you guys were just friends I figured I could ask him out. But after talking to him? Let me just say, you might think that Max, but I don’t think he does,” Meg told her, reaching over the table to set her hand on Max’s shoulder. 

Max’s brain was reeling, the shiny, glittery room fading in and out of focus around her. Was Meg telling the truth? Had Lucas really said that? Did he really feel that way?

“So if I were you, I’d find him and get him to finally talk,” Meg said, giving Max an encouraging smile.

“I’ll um…” Max started, shifting in place, really not knowing what to say, where to go from here.

“Okay, I’ll do that,” she settled on.

“Good luck,” Meg wished her, giving her shoulder a reassuring pat before letting Max go.

She turned to walk away, her feet leading her blindly forward, her brain still trying to catch up with all she’d just heard. Lucas wasn’t here with Meg after all. He’d called it off, saying he had feelings for someone else. He’d said that he’d rather go with her, but that didn’t make sense, he’d never… Max felt her heartbeat in her ears as she kept carelessly stumbling through the gym, almost walking straight into a group of Juniors standing around at the edge of the dance floor. She muttered out an apology, swerving to move past them, stopping when she got to the far end of the dance floor. She looked around, trying to collect her thoughts and come up with some sort of a plan. The corner was empty expect for a loudspeaker up on its stand, and the audio cables snaking from it towards the DJ table in front of a large nightscape backdrop. An idea sparked up in Max’s brain as her eyes followed the cables on the floor. Lucas was in audio duty for the night, so maybe he was somewhere over here. Her steps were slower and more purposeful now as she started to walk across the floor again, passing the DJ table where a group of students were trying to convince the DJ to play “Never Gonna Give You Up” for the third time that night. There were people crowded around, sitting at tables in the corner on the right of the DJ table, hanging back from the busy dance floor, but it was hard to make up any of their faces with the multicolored lights only rarely sweeping over the dark corner. If Lucas was trying to avoid her, this would be the perfect spot. 

Passing the group of Freshmen girls hanging out by the DJ table, Max squinted her eyes, trying to spot Lucas, all while wringing her hands together nervously. Maybe she’d guessed wrong and he wasn’t here, maybe she should try looking somewhere else… Lost in thought, Max wasn’t paying attention on her steps and suddenly she felt her foot catching on something, causing her to lurch forward. 

“Watch out!” someone called out, but she managed to keep her balance, looking down to see she had tripped on an audio cable. 

“Sorry, someone was supposed to tape that down…” Max looked up, just to see Lucas rushing over, a roll of duct tape in hand. Apparently he hadn’t realized it was her, just like she’d just noticed him, and he paused, seeming to gulp as his eyes met hers.

“Oh, that’s fine, I’m all good,” Max mumbled out, taking a step away from the cable on the floor. Lucas came over, ripping a piece of tape and crouching down to secure the cable on its place on the floor. 

“Josh was supposed to take care of this corner of the room, but it looks like he was slacking as per usual,” Lucas mumbled an explanation, straightening back up. Max nodded along.

“Well, it’s all good now, right?” she replied, just to say something.

“Yeah,” Lucas said, nodding, turning the roll of tape in his hands nervously. Max looked down at the floor, trying to gather her thoughts, to figure out what to say to him. She’d been so determined to find him, but now that she actually had, she wasn’t sure what she should say exactly. 

“Um,” she started, managing to look up at Lucas again, reaching up to tuck hair behind her ear.

“Can we talk?”

“Yeah, sure, um…” Lucas said, stuffing his hands into his pockets, nervousness just exuding off of him. 

“What do you wanna talk about?” He looked so nervous, the colored lights sweeping over his face and illuminating it against the dark of the corner, and making him look oh so handsome. But that wasn’t what she was supposed to focus on right now, she had to remind her brain.

“I…” Max started, shifting in place nervously, turning to look back at the crowd of people filling the dance floor.

“Jeez, there’s so many people here,” she muttered to herself.

“Do you want to go somewhere quieter? You can go first and I’ll hang back for a bit and follow you then?” Lucas suggested, going back to their usual routine from camp, and Max bit her lip, considering it. She appreciated it, and sneaking around like this _had_ worked for them before… Wait no it hadn’t. Like Dustin had told her, Tommy McClain had found out about them anyway, even though they had been so careful. All that effort, looking around corners and checking over shoulders and keeping quiet about it all, and it still hadn’t been enough. Frankly she was tired of it.

“No,” she started, determination in her voice.

“Let’s talk here, just, not right in front of the speakers, I can’t really hear you,” she added, pointing at the speaker stand behind him. Lucas nodded, looking around for a bit before spotting an empty spot near the curtain of streamers behind the speakers. 

“There’s room there if that’s…” he started.

“Yeah, that works,” Max cut in quickly and started to head over there, Lucas following behind her, making sure to leave a good distance between them. For a moment Max wondered if she still had time to give up on this and run away, to save herself from all this awkwardness. But she had been putting off this conversation with Lucas for long enough, she’d put it off since camp really, this was what she should’ve done instead of ambushing him with a panicked kiss in the lake shed. The mere thought of telling him about all the thoughts about him that were constantly swirling around in her brain had made her feel sick back then. It still did, that hadn’t changed, but screwing up things between them forever, not getting to be his best friend anymore – that was scaring her even more. So she had to do this. 

They’d reached the quieter spot by the sparkly silver and gold streamers, and Max turned to face Lucas, watching as he took his hands out of his pockets and clearly not knowing what to do with them now, reached up to loosen his tight collar. He looked nice in his suit, really, really nice actually. But she couldn’t let herself focus on that right now, as much as she would’ve liked to. 

“Okay, so…” Max spoke up, pausing to take a breath before pushing the words out.

“I spoke with Meg and she said you aren’t here as dates after all and that you called her or something and I just wanted to ask you if that’s true because earlier when I brought her up you didn’t say anything and I’m so confused.”

Her words left her in rapid fire pace, all blending together as exasperated word vomit. Lucas looked taken aback, his eyes wide and his jaw tense, and Max didn’t blame him. That had been a lot to suddenly spill on someone. 

“You mentioned her?” was his reply.

“Yeah, out by the coat check?” Max said back, her brow creasing. Had he really been paying that little attention to her that he hadn’t even listened to what she’d said? Lucas furrowed his brow in thought, thinking back to their conversation, Max guessed. He looked puzzled but there was something else on his face too, getting clearer and clearer by the second. It was almost like embarrassment, sheepishness. Though that could’ve just been the colorful lights flashing on his face. 

“Sorry I didn’t catch it back there, I…” he started, seeming shy all of a sudden, lifting his hand up to scratch the back of his neck, turning his gaze to the floor.

“I guess I was just distracted. By how beautiful you looked.”

Max scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest, looking away. She appreciated his humor but come on, right now? She turned to look at Lucas to tell him as much, but when she did, she was met with him looking right back at her, his eyes completely honest, free of any pretense or jokes. He’d meant it. 

“Wait, did you…” she stuttered, managing to somehow get out a couple words despite feeling like she was in free fall all of a sudden. How was he saying that? Unprompted, without sarcasm, like it was some straight fact.

“Yes, I mean it, Max. You look beautiful,” Lucas nodded.

“And please tell me if me saying that freaks you out and I’ll never say it again,” he rushed to add and when Max didn’t say anything, he continued:

“I just had to say it because it’s the truth. It’s the reason I didn’t hear you mention Meg earlier. I should’ve been listening to you and I’m really sorry I didn’t, but that must’ve been why I didn’t get it.”

Max had no clue how to respond to that, but luckily she didn’t have to as Lucas spoke up again.

“What Meg told you is true. I called her and I said I couldn’t be her date tonight, because it wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to her if I came here with her, cause I would’ve just been thinking about you the whole night.” 

“You told me you don’t care about Homecoming and that’s totally fine. But… I don’t know… I guess I still couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t get it out of my head. And I honestly still can’t, seeing you here now,” Lucas explained, gesturing over to her with a slight movement of his hand and Max had to look away, feeling her cheeks heating up.

“I’m really sorry I agreed to come here with Meg without telling you. I think after the whole thing that happened last Saturday, when you said that we shouldn’t even try to take this further… I think I was just mad, and frustrated, and not thinking straight,” Lucas said. Max shook her head, looking back at him.

“No, I’m sorry for speaking to you that way on Saturday. I was just so excited to get to hang out with you that when it didn’t work out I guess I just… got super bummed out by it and figured there was no use of even trying anymore. But I shouldn’t have been so harsh about it,” she explained. She really had looked forward to getting to go out with Lucas, letting herself pretend that they were going on a real date. When it had fallen through, she’d been so disappointed, turning her anger about the whole situation towards Lucas.

“Well, since we’re kind of on a roll about apologizing,” Lucas spoke up after a minute, smiling just faintly before his expression got serious again.

“I really am sorry about the Oath. I should’ve told you about it right away, talked things through with you and figured out what we wanted to do. I was just so surprised after you kissed me, I didn’t think about stuff like that. Frankly, the only thing I was thinking about was kissing you again,” Lucas admitted, looking down at the floor, hiding his face from her. Everything he’d said in the past five minutes was floating around in Max’s mind, spinning and turning in an overwhelming pace so she just focused on what he’d said last.

“I should’ve been the one to talk to you, Lucas,” she started with a sigh.

“I shouldn’t have sprung that kiss on you like that in the first place. And I shouldn’t have forced you to keep it going after summer ended. We’d both agreed to quit it and it wasn’t fair of me to drag you back into it.” 

Lucas shook his head slowly, taking a small step towards her.

“You didn’t force me, Max. When you kissed me that first time, it surprised the hell out of me, sure. But I was fully in for the ride from then on. And I had an idea why you invited me over to your house that day, and I was happy to do it.”

“Neither of us forced this to happen. It just did,” he admitted. Max turned to look him in the eye.

“Yeah, it did,” she replied, trying her best to not get lost into his deep brown eyes as they held onto hers so attentive as a quiet moment passed between them.

“What should we do now?” Lucas asked.

“The secret is out and if Tommy McClain knows, so will the whole school by next week.”

Max shook her head, looking down at the tips of her heels.

“Yeah, Dustin told me. How can he have found out, we were being so careful?”

“He was there that day in the locker room, and at your camp Olympics station,” Lucas listed with a shrug.

“He could’ve figured it out from that,” he added but Max was busy thinking back to the last day of camp, when she’d gotten kicked in the head at the obstacle course and Lucas had been at her side in a second, instinctively reaching out to hold her hand in front of all of camp because he’d been so worried about her. His hand had felt so warm and secure in hers, making her forget all about her aching head. She felt a steady sunny warmth in her chest just thinking about it. He’d asked what they should do next. And it was getting clearer and clearer to her that that was what she wanted.

Max sighed, starting to look over her shoulder at the crowd filling the dance floor but stopped herself midway. This was exactly what she wanted to stop doing. She didn’t want to sneak around anymore, to check over her shoulder and be constantly worried about prying eyes. She turned to look ahead, resolute and met Lucas’s eye. 

“Are we okay?” she asked, worry creeping into her voice. Before she could say anything more, she needed to know that their friendship was safe

“After our fight, after all this. Cause you’re my best friend, I don’t want to - I can’t - lose that.”

“I don’t want to lose you either,” Lucas said, taking a step towards her, his voice soft and genuine.

“We’re good,” he assured her, stopping just a couple feet from her. When Max spoke again she needed to look up at him as he was standing so close to her now.

“Good. I just wanted to be sure of that before…” she started, looking down at her fidgeting hands again. 

“God I’m so bad at this,” she exclaimed with a sharp self-deprecating laugh, stepping away a bit before turning back to him again. Lucas didn’t say anything, giving her space to form her thoughts. He just looked at her, the gaze of his deep eyes spreading such a feeling of calm reassurance over her that she knew she could do this. She could say this, as hard as it felt. 

“I umm...”

“I had a crush on you. Back in Freshman year,” Max said, trying to seem casual about it, tucking hair behind her ear.

“I had just spent the whole summer in California with my dad and then when I got back you had that new haircut and you’d gotten really tall and…” She shrugged.

“It just happened.”

“But I didn’t think you liked me that way, so it kinda just went away. But I heard from El that Mike thought you had a crush on me too back then. So um… did you?” 

At her last words she turned to look at him, hoping he wouldn’t be freaked out by all this new information once again. She really needed to stop springing things up on him. 

Lucas did look confused, blinking as he looked down at her, processing what she’d just said. But he didn’t look mad or weirded out, a smile slowly appearing on his face instead.

“I uh, yeah, I did,” he admitted and though she couldn’t really see it, Max was pretty sure he was blushing.

“It was after we kissed during spin the bottle at Mike’s house. I told Dustin that it had been nothing, because I didn’t want to break his trust but…”

“Yeah, I had a pretty major crush on you after that,” he said, ducking his head down for a moment, letting out a short laugh. 

“Why you ask?” he asked after a moment, looking at her again.

“Well, it’s just,” Max started.

“I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around why I kissed you that night by the lake. And I guess ever since that New Year’s party I’d been secretly wondering what it would be like to kiss you again.” 

“So then I did it, and I thought that would’ve been enough. But I kept on being curious. About what it would be like to hang out with you, go on dates, to tell people about us, to give you a kiss goodbye after school, to just…”

“Hold your hand in front of people and not worry about it. You know, things that people do when… when they’re dating,” she finished, her last words coming out hurried, and she could feel Lucas shift slightly as he heard them. She looked up at him, watching for his reaction, hesitant, worried she’d gone too far. But he just looked at her, smiling, and said:

“I’ve been thinking about that too.”

“You have? It’s not totally lame?”

“Of course not. How could it be lame? It’s you who we’re talking about,” he replied and Max had to look away, feeling her whole face flushing now. How could he keep saying stuff like that so easily?

Looking down at the floor, Max saw Lucas take a step towards her, reaching out his hand and she took it, holding onto it lightly, afraid it would be pulled away. 

“Max, I…” he started, his voice so gentle, so careful, like he was trying his all not to mess this up. Like he’d planned what he was going to say and wanted to do it just right.

“You’ve been my best friend since first grade, and now this summer I got to know what it is like to kiss you and have you kiss me back and it has been awesome, like _really_ awesome. But I can’t keep those two things separate anymore. I really like you and I want you to be my best friend I can talk to and joke around and argue and play video games with. But I also want to hold your hand and get to kiss you while we do. I don’t think I can keep this thing a secret anymore.”

“I really like you too,” Max replied, her voice almost a whisper.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Max echoed, brushing her thumb slightly over his fingers.

“So does this mean that you want to be…” Lucas started after a silent moment passed between them.

“Boyfriend and girlfriend?” Max supplied, saying the words out loud causing a thrill in her chest. 

“Yeah, boyfriend and girlfriend,” Lucas replied and Max turned to look at him, the hopeful, expectant but joyful look on his face making her heart nearly leap out of her chest. She smiled, wide and bright and giddy, and said:

“Yes.”

The smile that lit up on his face was brighter than all the shiny stars and colorful lights in the gym combined and Max couldn’t believe that she actually had someone so amazing smiling at her like that. 

“Okay, umm, well, do you wanna dance, then?” Lucas asked, grinning as he nodded over at the dance floor behind Max. She turned to glance back, having totally forgotten about the whole dance going on around them. The first notes of “Forever Young” had just flowed out the speakers and couples were filling the floor. Max turned back to Lucas, wondering if he was thinking about the same thing as she was. This was the song that had played on the last night of camp, playing far away from the boombox by the campfire when they’d laid side by side on the dock, looking up at the endless starry sky above them and talking about their futures, promising not to forget each other. The night they’d thought was their last. Lucas didn’t say anything but Max could tell he was thinking back to it too, his smile wistful for a moment, lightly squeezing her hand with his. 

“Let’s go,” Max said, turning towards the crowd, holding his hand tighter as she gently pulled him behind her as she walked out of the shadowed corner of the gym, and towards the dance floor, bright and sparkling under the lights and the disco ball. Maybe there were people turning to look at them, maybe there weren’t, Max wouldn’t know. The only thing she was focusing on was the bright, giddy happiness that was spreading all through her as she lead Lucas to the middle of the dance floor, turning to him and looping her arms around his neck, feeling him holding onto her waist. And then they danced, awkwardly and stepping on each other’s toes at first, snorting out laughs and pulling faces at each other, all the while the music played and the disco ball above their heads turned around, sending sparkling rays of light down to them. Another burst of laughter fading, Max looked up at Lucas, just to see him already looking at her, his gaze on her so tender, so captivated, like he couldn’t quite believe his luck. He wasn’t the only one. The colorful bursts of light illuminating his face reminded Max of that night at the moonlit lake. And of the stars shining above them as they laid on the dock. It was barely two months ago, but it felt ages away, with all that had happened since then. A lot had changed since those night, and both of them had done dumb things, but the time since then had taught Max many things. About Lucas, about herself, about how to handle the mess of thoughts and emotions inside her when it came to him. And it had also taught her to communicate them.

“Lucas,” she said, her voice soft and light as she pulled him closer by his neck.

“Yeah?” he asked, coming along happily, leaning down closer to her. She was pretty sure she didn’t need to ask him, but after everything that had happened, she wanted to make sure. She didn’t want to spring anymore kisses on him. 

“Would you kiss me?” 

For a split second she could see the hesitation flash in his eyes. And she felt it too, the weight of the crowd of people around them threatening to close in for just a second. But then it was gone, replaced by nervous but thrilled excitement as he nodded, bringing up his hand, crooking his index finger to gently lift her chin to him, the gesture so tender it made Max shiver all the way to her toes. And then he was kissing her, soft and warm and joyful, and it felt like their first kiss all over again. In a way it was, it was the first kiss of this new start, this fragile, beautiful new reality where they were willing to throw away the pretenses and just be honest with each other, to take the scary step of change and see where it would take them. Max had been afraid to take that step, worried that admitting it to Lucas and to herself that she had feelings for him would ruin everything, would end their friendship for good. But she’d done it, and the world hadn’t ended when she did. The music kept playing and the disco ball kept turning, reflecting twinkling lights onto them and Lucas’s familiar brown eyes were bright and happy as they locked with hers when they leaned away just an inch to catch their breaths. So Max smiled brightly at him, using her hands linked behind his neck to pull his lips to hers again. It might’ve not been their first kiss, but it was the best one yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! A happy ending finally for these two! I had a lot of fun writing this fic and exploring this trope, and I'm so grateful for all the reads and comments and kudos from you all! I just love writing Lumax and it's so great to see people loving them as much as I do and reading about them. I really hope you enjoyed the conclusion to this story, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it and the whole story in general!


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